By Diana Holbourn
During Becky's Last Term at University, she Takes Interest in Controversial Debates Between an Atheist and a Christian she Knows
Book five of the online Becky Bexley series. Chapter 2 continued.
This series accompanies the books about what Becky does at university and afterwards, which you can find out more about on my author website. (The online series is in draft form.)
(To recap: The previous page ended with some humour imagining people being ordered to worship the Royal Family's favourite sports team in the old days or face severe punishment, and Deborah saying she wouldn't be surprised if nasty things like that really did go on.)
Judith said, "Yes. I'm glad a lot of countries have grown more civilised, and that at least governments in this part of the world don't execute people horribly for silly reasons any more! But as for what you were saying before about religion causing a lot of war so it would have been better if it hadn't existed, I think things are more complicated than that.
"The thing is that I think a lot of supposedly religious wars were started because of mixed motives, not all of them religious, so some of them might well have happened anyway. I know a lot of harm's been caused in the name of religion. But it wasn't always religion that was at the root cause of it.
"Take the Crusades. I've read that there were several different reasons for those. Apparently in the centuries before them, an entire two thirds of the Christian world had been taken over by Muslim armies, that fully intended to take over more and more territory. They'd even taken over a lot of Spain, and they'd invaded France. European rulers wanted to stop their own countries being invaded, or to take back territory that had been invaded before by Muslim armies, which included places like Jerusalem, that a Turkish Muslim tribe had conquered from an emperor who was part of the Christian world, who ruled from Byzantium, which is now part of Turkey, - which must mean that Muslim armies took over even the capital of that empire in the end, since Turkey's a Muslim country today. I don't know what all their motives were for invading so many places.
"But anyway, I think Muslim armies - or should I say armies that happened to be Muslim - were invading more of the emperor's territory before the Crusades began, and he asked the pope for help to drive them back, hopefully not just because he wanted to rule them himself, but because of the well-being of the people who lived there who risked suffering catastrophes at the hands of invading armies. But who knows! Anyway, he thought a good way of persuading the pope to help was appealing to his feelings about how bad it was that Jerusalem was under the control of Muslim rulers who were making it hard for Christians to go on pilgrimage there, thinking that would have special appeal because Jerusalem was thought of as special, because Jesus had been there and had had his trial there and so on. I think that's the way it was.
"If you really want to know about this stuff, you're probably better off looking in an encyclopedia, because I'm a bit vague on the details, and I can't quite be sure everything I say from memory is entirely accurate. But the pope at the time agreed to help, and recruited a lot of troops, and that's what started the Crusades. I can't imagine popes recruiting troops nowadays; but in those days they did, it seems. I think that particular pope had sent hired troops before to help the Byzantine emperor when part of his territory was invaded. It seems there was a whole lot of war around in those days.
"But some territories that the Crusaders who were recruited invaded had become peaceful and quite civilised by the time they got there, and they ruined things and caused a catastrophe for all kinds of people living there because of their violence. And the emperor was dismayed when they got there, because he'd hoped the pope would send him battalions of highly-trained hired troops, but instead he discovered massive violent mobs of untrained undisciplined peasants wanting to come through his territory to get to Jerusalem.
"It seems the Pope recruited anyone who was willing to go. From what I've read, I think he thought helping would be a great opportunity for him, because he thought the Crusades he decided to start would increase his power and prestige somehow, and make him seem like a strong ruler. It seems he thought they might bring him enough respect that he could become the undisputed head of the Church, which had broken up into a few different sects under different rulers, I think. I don't know how he thought it would achieve that.
"But that backfired anyway in the end, I think. I read that popes came to be looked on as warmongers, instead of respected leaders of a religion that after all is supposed to teach peace.
"But it seems the pope at the time wanted to reassert himself as a powerful authority figure, after popes had been annoyed for some time by kings choosing the leaders of the Church in their own countries, when the popes thought it was their job. Something like that. So he thought mustering a big army under his control from all their countries would show them who was really boss or something. I don't know; it sounds a bit daft to me. I've never read a really good explanation of why the pope thought that way.
"But anyway, apart from that, I think some people were motivated to join the Crusades after people who went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem returned with stories of being mistreated there. And it seems the leaders of some countries heard a lot of those stories, and retold them, exaggerating them so they sounded much worse, because they were using them to motivate people to join their armies. The Byzantine emperor told the pope some stories that might have been exaggerated, in his efforts to persuade him to help him.
"It had become a lot more difficult for Christians to reach Jerusalem, because the Turkish tribe that had taken it over blocked off their route to it for a while, it seems. And some of the Christian pilgrims really were badly mistreated, I think. But I read that the emperor passed on stories of atrocities whether he could be sure they were true or not, to try to get the help he wanted.
"And another reason why some people joined the Crusades was that some Catholic rulers knew they could manipulate lots of people into joining them by promising them it would mean all their sins would be washed away, whatever they were, and that they'd be granted automatic entry into heaven, where they'd receive a big reward for what they'd done. That would have been especially appealing for men who'd committed a lot of sin, like knights who'd brutally killed a lot of people in battle, especially since they'd think they could kill more and have a good excuse and still get to heaven. Most people couldn't read and write in those days, so there wouldn't have been many people around who could have read the New Testament and discovered that wasn't the kind of message it taught at all. It seems a lot of them just trusted their leaders and believed what they said.
"And there were merchants who supported the Crusades because they wanted to take back control of important trading routes and trading centres that had been taken over by the Muslims, so they could be the ones making money from trading there. And they could make a lot of money by transporting people to the countries they wanted to fight in.
"And a lot of knights were expected to go to the Crusades by the lords they worked for. It seems there were a lot of knights around, making a living by helping local lords around Europe keep control of the areas they owned, - not by some sophisticated negotiation tactics or anything like that, but by violence.
"A lot of violent men probably joined the Crusades because they liked the idea of going to war and taking booty. I heard that younger sons of nobles, who wouldn't have been destined to inherit their parents' property or lands, often went to war to try and take property of their own and get glory and riches. I think quite a bit of the brutality of the Crusades was caused because nobles who weren't destined to inherit their parents' property, or who were but were greedy for more, fought to get more lands and riches, taking some land between the countries they came from and Jerusalem.
"I think some kings in Western Europe actually encouraged some knights and men like that to go on crusades, to get them out of their own countries, to reduce violence in them! Apparently war within those countries was reduced when the Crusades started, as young men who could have been recruited into nobles' private armies to fight each other for booty and glory, or whatever they thought was in it for them, went to the Middle East instead.
"I think the pope himself encouraged that, urging that Christians stopped fighting each other, to take the fighting elsewhere. The population of Europe had been increasing, as fewer people were being killed off in wars, because the Vikings and others had stopped invading places. But that meant there were a lot of aggressive young men around who somehow liked the idea of fighting for a cause, or at least preferred it to the life of drudgery they might otherwise have had working on the land or something; so the Crusades were partly a way of filtering them into at least fighting somewhere else. Maybe some of those men were descended from the Vikings, and liked the idea of carrying on family traditions; but I'm not sure about that.
"Apparently Europe at the time was a horribly violent place, with all sorts of disputes and power struggles being settled by violence or mini-wars between lords with their private armies, and also lords keeping control of the people who worked and lived on the land they owned by violence, as well as recruiting armies to help their countries fight other countries. So a lot of men would have been used to violence and used to committing it. Maybe there was a lot of violence within families, so a lot of people grew up with it, so it seemed natural.
"And conditions for a lot of poor families would likely have been so hard, maybe with the threat of starvation always hanging over them because of crop failures, and them maybe living lives of tedious drudgery in grinding poverty, that some might have thought going on a crusade sounded like an adventure and a chance to see the world that they couldn't expect to ever have otherwise; and maybe they thought it would be an escape from the soul-destroying hardship of their lives. Apparently there was quite a lot of drought, starvation and disease around in the years before the first crusade was called.
"And a lot of them had incentives to go on some of the crusades because they were offered various benefits if they did, such as an exemption from taxes and tolls, permission not to have to work on the land for whatever local lord was in charge for some time, being allowed to postpone repayment of their debts, and other things.
"But there probably was a lot of religious bigotry and fanaticism involved among the uneducated hordes as well, as well as among their more educated leaders, perhaps.
"Apparently a lot of people thought the world was about to end at the time of the first crusade, because there was this belief around that it was likely to end about a thousand years after Christ lived, for some reason. The first of the crusades happened in 1095, I think. Some things happened that some people thought must be signs of something dramatic about to happen, like a comet appearing, and a meteor shower, and a lunar eclipse; and it seems some people thought it would be fantastic to be in Jerusalem when the end of the world happened, so they could help fight the Battle of Armageddon or something. Goodness knows why!
"And another thing that might have whipped up some religious fervour was a disease called ergotism, caused by a fungus that especially tended to infest rye crops that were often used to make bread. Nowadays people know how to stop the fungus developing. But they didn't realise it was causing disease in those days. One type of the disease caused gangrene, and another type caused epileptic-type fits; and they caused hallucinations, where a lot of people thought they were seeing demons, and even that the devil was speaking to them.
"The chemicals in the fungus that caused that kind of thing were used to make LSD in the 20th century, I think. But at the time of the Crusades, and for centuries afterwards, people didn't know what was causing the problems. I think the hallucinations even led to a lot of the witchcraft trials, like the famous one in Salem in America in about 1692, where some women were accused of casting spells that caused people to get possessed by demons, and doing other nasty things, because people didn't understand much about the causes of disease or hallucinations in those days, and thought supernatural beings must often be involved, when it was really that people who'd been poisoned by the ergot fungus were having hallucinations about demons appearing and bad supernatural-type things happening.
"So the ergotism disease might have increased people's belief in hell, and scared them into wanting to go to heaven to avoid it; and the high death rate in Europe at the time of the Crusades possibly made a lot of people want to do something exciting and significant with their lives while they still had the chance, knowing their chances of dying were quite high whether they went to war or not, what with all the disease, starvation and violence around.
"Even these days in countries that don't have good healthcare systems, and where a lot of people don't have much education, it's common for people who suffer calamities to worry that they've happened because someone with a grudge against them has cursed them, because they've never learned about modern explanations for health problems and natural disasters, and there's still a lot of belief in witchcraft in some parts of the world. Some people even get accused of witchcraft and killed, although sometimes the accusations are knowingly false and malicious, made by people who've got grudges against the people they're accusing, or made against family members who are getting old and ill and their families can't afford to look after them, or even made against children they can't afford to look after, so they want a reason to get rid of them.
"A lot of people might have thought like that in medieval times in Europe. Anyway, back to what I was talking about before, there were quite a few reasons why people joined the Crusades, not all of them religious. And the religious ones people had often didn't have anything to do with what the Bible teaches."
One of the girls said, "It seems there's still a lot of ignorance today about what the New Testament teaches. I heard about a man in Russia in the Communist era who had a job where he was supposed to persecute Christians. I think a lot of government-sponsored persecution of Christians went on in Russia in those days. I'm pretty sure a lot of Christians are still persecuted in some parts of the world.
"But this man said he raided an underground Christian meeting along with some other police - or whoever they were, - and everyone was violently dispersed. He said he whipped this girl on the back. They raided the meeting the following week, and she was there again. So he whipped her back really badly. But to his surprise, the following week, she was there again! So he got curious about what on earth could be attracting her to the meeting, and picked up a New Testament to read. To his surprise, it was nothing like he thought it would be. He'd assumed it would be full of hate, and incitement to rebel against the authorities, and things like that. But he thought it was really nice instead, and eventually became a Christian himself because of it. So maybe things like the Crusades wouldn't have happened if a lot more people had known what the New Testament says."
One of the others smiled and said, "Yeah. I was on an Internet forum where there was this man who was convinced the New Testament is a book of hate. It didn't matter what I said; he was convinced of it no matter what. So in the end I decided to have a bit of fun and joke about it. He was Jewish, - well, I expect he still is; and he might have had an instinctive dislike for the New Testament, because he thought the New Testament blames the Jews for killing Jesus, which it doesn't actually, just the authorities who had him killed; after all, all the first Christians were Jews, so it would be strange if they just blamed Jews for it! But considering how much Jews have been persecuted over the years and accused of being Christ killers or whatever, I suppose I can understand people thinking it says that. I expect that kind of persecution was carried out by people who hadn't read what the New Testament really says!
"But anyway, this man's accusations seemed pretty extreme to me; so I decided to have a bit of sarcastic fun with them.
"I can understand a bit if people say the Old Testament's a book of hate, because there are a few books in it where the people of Israel were told to kill unbelievers in the lands they conquered. But this man thought the Old Testament's good but the New Testament's terrible, for some reason, and told me I should read the New Testament properly to find out it really is offensive. I joked,
"'Oh yes, how silly of me. Well, at your suggestion, I've just read it - I'm a very fast reader! And it turns out that you're right; it says all kinds of terrible things! Take Matthew chapter 10, for example, the first verse of which says:
"'"And Jesus told his disciples that animal lovers are intolerably soppy, just parasites and mere garbage, to be trodden on like worms, thrown over fences into other people's gardens like pesky slugs, shooed away with buckets of cold water like stray cats, made to carry heavy loads like donkeys, confined to hutches like rabbits, and made to eat dog food and the odd bit of chocolate or biscuit thrown to them as a treat like a dog. Then Jesus performed a miracle on the minds of his disciples, so his followers, who were all animal lovers, wouldn't want to leave him in disgust."
"'Or did I just make that up?'
"And I said people can tell the New Testament's just a pile of hate if they realise the words in it meant different things in the original languages it was written in to what they're translated as today. I joked,
"'The word Jesus in fact means Unbeliever-Hater. The word Christ means "killer of billions of unbelievers". So the name of the Christian saviour is "Unbeliever-Hater Killer of Billions of unbelievers".
"'And actually, the word saviour really means unbeliever-Destroyer, so those who claim that Jesus is their saviour are really saying that Unbeliever-Hater is their Unbeliever-Destroyer.
"'Those who claim Jesus is their Lord and Saviour are saying something even worse, because the word Lord actually means "Banisher of All unbelievers from the Universe".
"'So if you ever hear someone saying, "Jesus is my Lord and saviour", you'll really know they're saying, "Unbeliever-Hater is my Banisher of unbelievers from the Universe and unbeliever-Destroyer."
"'If they tell you they're born again, run as fast as you can! The phrase born again really means, "Ready and Eager to Drive unbelievers into the Sea, as well as coffee-drinkers."
"'The word Christian actually means "Unbeliever-Thumping Warrior."
"'So if someone tells you they're a born-again Christian, they're really saying they're a "Ready and Eager to Drive Unbelievers into the Sea as well as coffee-drinkers Unbeliever-Thumping Warrior".
"'The main reason a lot of people think Christians are hypocrites is that they see them drinking coffee, but when they ask them if they're ready to hurl themselves into the sea, they say no way!
"'If they tell you they're a born-again Christian who worships Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, ... well, work out what they're really saying yourself.'
"After the man said something insulting in response to that, I said, 'I can understand you wanting to insult me, because actually, things are even worse than I've told you so far. The names of the gospel writers mean evil things too, as well as the names of others in the New Testament:
"'The name Matthew means, "Destroyer of Unbelievers with Nukes". The name Mark means, "Nuke the Unbelievers into oblivion with your best high-powered missiles". The name Luke means, "Use your best hydrogen bombs and nuclear submarines against the Unbelievers, and Throw Men with Long Hair into Prison". And the name John means, "Send all the Unbelievers into Space with High-Powered Space Rockets attached, and Make Heavy Rock Music Lovers Listen to Classical Music All Day for the Rest of their Puny Sad Lives." The name Paul means "Turn The world into a Barren Desert by Bulldozing all the Trees and Vegetation So No Unbeliever or Rap Fan Can Live There".
"'And the words New Testament actually mean, "Document of Instruction on Nuclear Warfare Against the Unbelievers".
"'So if you hear a Christian saying they read their New Testament every day, you'll know what they're up to. They're clearly working as secret nuclear technology experts or preparing to man the missiles. If they tell you they're not in the military, don't believe them.
"'Of course, Jesus' parents had offensive names too. The name Mary means, "Mother of All Who Hate and Conspire to Exterminate the Unbelievers, Especially if they're Cricket Fans"; and the name Joseph means, "Father of all who plot deadly nuclear, biological and chemical warfare against the Unbelievers, and Think Watching Football is a Pointless Waste of Time, only indulged in by zombies with rabbit stew for brains".
"'Of course, Joseph was only Jesus' step-father. God was his real father. The name God really means, "Helper of Those who Invent the Most High-Powered Weapons to Use Against the Unbelievers, as Well as Chocolate-Lovers, Jelly Baby Eaters and kittens"'.
"The man I said those things to didn't find them amusing, and nor did some atheists on the forum. One said he could easily believe what I said, considering the fact that a lot of Christians in America like to carry guns and are prejudiced against unbelievers.
"I joked, 'It's a pity you feel that way, because, for example, if you ever meet a Christian with a burning ambition to exile all non-believers to Antarctica and kill any who try to escape with the sword, you won't be able to use their own Bible to put them off, as you could have done if you'd read what the New Testament really says! Oh well! You'll just have to wait to see if they start to put such a plan into operation, and then call the police on them!'
"Then some of the atheists there said the New Testament might have been written by fraudsters who didn't believe a word of it, or self-hating Jews who wanted to cause trouble for all the Jews. I told them the New Testament was actually nice and that it said lots of good things, and quoted some, like lots of verses that say Christians should live in peace and be kind and gentle, and not have fits of temper, and all kinds of things like that. But they said the bits that promoted Christianity were hateful, because they tried to discredit non-Christians by saying the Christian lifestyle was better. What they were saying seemed so over-the-top that I just joked around again, saying,
"'OK, I admit it: In reality, what you say is all true. In fact it's worse than that. The New Testament, or "Document Instructing on Nuclear Warfare Against the Unbelievers" was actually written by unbelievers, who hated themselves with a great hatred. The reason they hated themselves with such venom was because their parents had always told them they were useless and feckless and would never achieve anything worthwhile in life. So they hated their parents, and they hated themselves, because they believed what their parents had told them. And one of them was mugged in the streets by a fellow unbeliever, and one was beaten up in a bar-room brawl by one. They also witnessed a crowd of unbelievers baying for the blood of a criminal who they believed to be innocent.
"Those experiences turned them against all unbelievers, including themselves, who they hated even more, with a great and venomous disgust, contempt and hatred, and so they came to believe that all unbelievers, including themselves, ought to be wiped out. They came to view the world as a den of evil! They woke up in the morning, thought about their alcohol problems and addiction to violent video games, and loathed themselves even more! They loathed the unbelievers who sold them the alcohol and violent video games that fed their addictions, and they loathed all other unbelievers for not helping them break their addictions. Their desire that unbelievers should be wiped out became stronger and more and more violent the more they thought about those things, and the more violent video games they played. It was after playing one where the object was to nuke the whole world that they wrote the deadly and destructive Document of Instruction on Nuclear Warfare Against the Unbelievers, that is, the New Testament.'"
One of the girls joked, "Corr you're a sicko!"
The girl who'd made the joke on the forum said, "Well, I expected everyone to know I was just talking a pile of rubbish!"
They all giggled.
But then Judith turned the conversation serious again, saying, "Anyway, Deborah, you mentioned the Spanish Inquisition, when you said you thought the world would be better off without religion. I'll tell you a bit about that if you still want to know. I know some horrendous things happened, with people being arrested on suspicion of being heretics, and a minority of unlucky ones being tortured to make them confess, and killed in the worst cases. I read that that too was really only partly religious though; religion was the excuse of the leaders, but it was partly their attempt to eliminate possible rebels, and people who they thought might be persuaded to join conspiracies that would threaten their power, as well as being for other reasons.
"And people who were found guilty of heresy had their properties confiscated, which brought in money for the monarchy to use in their wars and things, so it's possible that that was sometimes one motive for making accusations against them.
"I think there were several inquisitions throughout Europe in medieval times. I don't know what motivated them all. I mean, I'm pretty sure religious bigotry must have had a fair bit to do with them. But it seems that religion might at least quite often have just been used by leaders to achieve other things.
"It seems the activity of the Spanish Inquisition increased at times when the country was at war, when the leaders worried more about rebellion breaking out in parts of the country, perhaps partly because higher taxes were demanded to finance the wars, which would have really mattered to people who risked being thrown into poverty by them, or who would even just have had their wealth reduced quite a bit.
"A section of the community that might have been particularly affected by high taxes was Jews, and Jews who'd converted to Christianity just to try to avoid anti-Jewish violence in previous decades. A lot of those were pretty wealthy. I think at first, the Inquisition in Spain didn't target Jews as such, but they did target Jews who'd supposedly converted to Christianity, after they were rumoured to be still Jews in private, and some nobles insisted the monarchy do something about it.
"But I think it was also an attempt to decrease the power of the nobles. The thing is that to increase taxes, the government had to take more control of local areas that had been more independent before, run by the nobles, who'd had the ability to tax the people they ruled an amount they decided on themselves, it seems. I'll explain about what kind of set-up there was, and why the monarchy thought the Inquisition might help to change things in their favour:
"I read that the Jews in Spain lived mostly in a community that was like a separate country within the country, having their own laws and penalties for crime, and their own language; and they had a lot of success at making things to sell to others, and lending money at interest, when the Catholic Church had rules forbidding Catholics from lending money at interest. Apparently a lot of people came to resent Jews because repaying the interest on loans they charged could be quite a burden, and for other reasons. I don't know much about that though. I'm a bit vague about the reasons for the Inquisition as well, and I think even historians might not be entirely sure, so some of them have put forward theories; but it seems it did have something to do with trying to keep control of the people. If you want to know more, you could look it up in Wikipedia or other online encyclopedias. I found out the information myself from some of those.
"It seems from what I've read that one reason for the Inquisition could have been that the monarchy in Spain was losing control of the nobles, who some previous generations of royals had somehow been able to keep from causing unrest in the country, which I think they sometimes caused by using the private armies they tended to have in those days to fight each other for territory and power or something. I'm not clear about that. But it was getting harder to control them, for some reason, according to an article I read. And they were always putting some kind of pressure on the monarchy to reduce taxes and allow them to have more control over the government of the areas they ruled. I'm a bit vague about what kind of set-up they had. It's not something I've studied.
"But I think Spain was a kind of federation of kingdoms, and there was a marriage between the monarchs of the two main ones, and then they wanted to unite their kingdoms and have more control over the rest of them, because there was in-fighting between different areas, and they wanted to keep their kingdom peaceful, and they wanted power to make more of the laws so they could do things like have more control over the tax system. I think they partly did that by sending armies to put down armies of nobles who opposed them. I think a lot of nobles had a reputation for cruelty and extorting money from the people who lived on the lands they owned, which were themselves pretty lawless at the time. That's one reason why the monarchy wanted to control them, to bring some law and order to the country.
"But the only power that had the authority to call on all the nobles to unite and fight for a common cause instead of fighting each other was the Catholic Church. Monarchs were the heads of it in their countries, so they could sometimes use it to achieve their purposes. If it was the Catholic Church calling for changes in the laws in the regions the nobles had power over, it wouldn't look as if it was one kingdom or another oppressing them, and the nobles wouldn't be able to divide opinion by swearing allegiance to one monarch or region over the other. So the monarchs arranged it so it looked as if it was the Catholic Church changing the laws. the Church had so much support in the country that the nobles couldn't oppose its authority without risking some kind of opposition from the people they ruled. I think the monarchs also wanted to unify the country so they'd be better able to call up troops from all parts of it to fight wars against other countries.
"Apparently a kind of church police force answerable to the monarchs as the heads of the Catholic Church was created to enforce the laws, with the Inquisition being only part of what they did. It seems religious dissenters were often under suspicion of conspiring against the monarchy or being traitors or resisting royal authority in some other way, and that's part of the reason they were arrested. Since the Catholic Church was a tool of the monarchy to enforce its laws, opposition to the Catholic Church would have put people under suspicion of opposing more than just its religious teaching; they would likely have been suspected of opposing the way the monarchy were trying to make people live their lives too. The royal police force dealt with other conspirators in the same way as it did with people who were thought to be heretics, as well as other kinds of criminals like counterfeiters of money and royal documents and things. They were also responsible for transmitting information from the monarchy to the people."
Tracy grinned and said to Deborah, "... You did really want to know all this stuff, didn't you? If you didn't, it's a pity you asked the question! That'll teach you!"
Deborah replied, "Well, I didn't expect an answer that was this long, with all these theories. It's interesting though."
Judith said, "Well that's good. I'd be able to give you a clearer answer if I knew more about it. But anyway, it's possible that another reason for the Inquisition was envy among the aristocracy, since it seems there were so many Jews serving in the court that some non-Jewish nobles who felt excluded might well have become jealous.
"There might also have been some racial bigotry involved, combined with religious bigotry, not just in Spain, but also in other countries Spain wanted to make alliances with. I've read that Spain was stigmatised a lot by some powerful people in other countries for tolerating such big populations of Jews and Muslims in their country, and the Spanish people were characterised as greedy and cruel and violent as a result of having their blood mixed with the blood of Muslim invaders and Jews; and the leaders of Spain were concerned about wanting support from other countries to defend territory they held against other countries they thought might attack it, as well as to get new territory they wanted. So the Inquisition might have been partly a propaganda exercise to convince other European powers that they were better Catholics than they had the reputation for being, and were trying to root out bad blood, so they'd be happier to make alliances with them. That's what some historians think anyway.
"But also, one thing was that they feared an invasion from Turkey, which had an empire that ruled several countries at the time, and they thought there might be spies among their Muslim population trying to help Turkey, and even among the Jewish population. I think they actually did discover some plots.
"I think there were other reasons for the Inquisition as well.
"And one thing is that as bad as it's got the reputation for having been, it seems it wasn't harsher than the secular courts of the time. Only a small minority of people who were arrested were tortured or killed, I think, although I think it was at its harshest when it first began. But I read that most people were just punished by being made to do some kind of penance. And punishments for crimes that didn't have anything to do with religion were often just as harsh in those days. It seems they were pretty barbaric in general. It seems torture and death were fairly common for quite a few crimes, partly to serve as a warning to others, because it was harder to catch criminals, so they wanted to try to scare them into not committing crimes. That doesn't mean it was justified, of course. I'm just glad those days are long gone! I think some crimes that today would seem quite minor got severe punishments.
"One problem with doing that is if the punishment for, say, shoplifting and murder, is the same, quite a few criminals might think they may as well murder someone as just shoplift. So the penalty meant to deter crime can actually make it worse.
"It might have been that the authorities were hoping that one deterrent to crime was preaching about heaven and hell, since they might have hoped people would be enticed to behave well by thoughts of making it to heaven if they were law-abiding, which would have given them the hope of something much better than the poor-quality lives a lot of them were probably living; and it might have been hoped that they'd be scared off committing crime by thoughts about going to hell if they broke the law. So the authorities might have thought that anyone trying to persuade people to give up religion was doing something dangerous that risked an increase in crime.
"But I think the Inquisition itself was so brutal at first that even the pope asked them to be more merciful! And it was especially unfair at first, because people weren't allowed defence lawyers at their trials, I don't think, - although I don't know how common they were anyway in those days. And even hearsay could be used as evidence that could be thought of as strong enough to convict people, which could mean that people could falsely accuse others, like if they held grudges against them, and the inquisitors wouldn't feel the need to look for more evidence. And the person who was accused wouldn't be told who it was who'd accused them, so it would have been harder for them to have worked out what motive the person might have had for accusing them.
"It might well have been partly a kind of misguided religious zeal that made the people who ordered and worked for the Inquisition do what they did. But it does seem that there could've been several different reasons for it, not just religious ones.
"And after a while, when the Inquisition started targeting Protestants, after some people in Spain started being converted to Protestantism, when most people were Catholics before, part of the reason for the persecution could well have been that the Catholic Church didn't want to lose control over the people's religious activities, partly because it would have meant losing out on the money they got from them, because apparently everyone had to give a tenth of their earnings to the Catholic Church, no matter how poor they were, and people were encouraged to give land and money to the Church to supposedly increase their chances of quickly getting to heaven in the afterlife as well, I think.
"In medieval times, Catholicism was the only Christian denomination that existed. So-called heresy was cruelly put down, and the Church had quite a bit of control over people's lives. They developed a doctrine about this place they thought up called purgatory, where good people would have to go to be cleansed of their sins after they died before they could get into heaven; and the Catholic Church made a lot of money selling documents called indulgences, that supposedly guaranteed that the loved ones of anyone who bought one would spend less time suffering in purgatory. And a lot more money was made by selling bits of wood or other things that they pretended were bits of the cross of Christ and other things like that. Maybe people thought having them would bring them good fortune or prevent some hardship or something. Parts of the Catholic Church were really corrupt; and a lot of men probably got high-powered positions in it just because they knew it would make them rich.
"So having seen how Protestantism was really taking off in other parts of Europe, the Catholic church leaders might have wanted to do their best to stop it happening in Spain.
"There were organisations in the Catholic Church that did quite a bit of good, like cared for some sick and poor people, and educated some children, teaching them to read and write and things. But a lot of its leaders were pretty corrupt, it seems.
"But I've read that the crimes of the Spanish Inquisition were exaggerated quite a bit by some people in countries that were enemies of Spain at the time, like England, and by Protestants who'd suffered because of it, and wanted to use it to discredit the Catholic Church."
The girls all decided they needed to get drinks after listening to that.
While they were drinking them, one of them said, "I've heard people try to discredit Catholics today by calling them cannibals, because they believe the bread and wine at Communion literally turns into the body and blood of Christ, rather than just being symbols of them to make people think about what he suffered when they take Communion in church, - probably so they can be moved or grateful at the thought of him paying for their sins, - like a lot of Christian denominations believe they are. I mean, the Bible says he said at the Last Supper that a cup of wine he was handing round for everyone to share was, 'God's new covenant sealed with my blood, which is poured out for you.' You know, he was saying the cup was the new deal he was making with his followers that meant they didn't have to live under the old Law of Moses any more, but could live as his followers instead.
"Obviously he didn't mean that literally, but was using picture language. So I reckon he was almost certainly doing the same when he talked about the bread he broke for himself and his disciples there being his body, and the wine being his blood. After all, he said people were to break bread and drink wine as a ceremony in the future in remembrance of him; he didn't say people should do that so they could actually eat his body and drink his blood."
Deborah was puzzled and said, "I thought you were all Catholics, so you'd believe in Catholic Communion."
Judith said, "We were all raised Catholic; but it seems to all of us that it's most likely that Jesus just meant the Communion ceremony to be symbolism, designed to be a reminder of what he did, and to help us think of him."
One of the girls grinned and said, "Imagine if we invited people to the priest's parties by saying, 'Why not come to the next party the friendly cannibal university priest's holding at his home on Sunday evening?'"
One of the others smiled and said, "I was on an Internet forum, where someone said there was a legend that the followers of some religion or other believed in the 1st century after Christ that the ancestors of humans had killed and eaten the gods that lived on earth at the time. He said, 'I hope nonsense fantasies like that don't come back again!'
"I joked, 'Why shouldn't they? It sounds like a great idea to me, fantasising about eating such specialities! Instead of just believing our ancestors ate the gods, we could fantasise about eating them ourselves. Yum, imagine god on toast! Or what about roast god, the ultimate Christmas dinner! They'd be bound to taste much nicer than any other meat. Or maybe we could imagine the gods being made of a special kind of sweet tasty essence, so we could scoop bits off them and put them in porridge and things. Or maybe they'd taste like sugar, so we could keep god essence in a jar once we'd captured some of it, and have teaspoons full of god in tea and coffee.'"
They giggled. Then one of the others said, "On one of the Internet forums I've posted on, instead of having my real location in my user profile, I wrote, 'Sitting here with my foot forever in my mouth'. So it always said that when it listed my location with the messages I posted.
"One of the others there joked about what I said. He asked me, 'Isn't always having your foot in your mouth getting a bit uncomfortable? And how do you eat? Do you cheat and take your foot out of your mouth before biting? Or do you just keep one toe in the corner of your mouth while you suck liquidised food through a straw?
"'And how do you walk? Do you hobble along bouncing on one foot? And do you wear a sock and shoe on the foot that's not in your mouth?
"'And how often do you bite your toes by mistake when you eat? And doesn't your foot start to taste a bit kind of yucky after a while? I'm just wondering.'
"I joked, 'OK, I'll tell you: I can keep my foot in my mouth while I eat because it's hollow with a hole at each end, which means I can pour food in one end, and it comes out the other end in my mouth. The end of my foot that's in my mouth has also got teeth built in, so I can squeeze it together with my lips, and the teeth crunch the food up. I never accidentally bite my foot with my other teeth. My foot's nice to suck though, because it has a nice minty taste, which turns to lemon on Sundays.
"'I can walk easily because I have three feet, so while one's constantly in my mouth, I have another two to get me around.'"
The girls grinned. Then one said for fun, "You know I said earlier that my sister's got a boyfriend who works for a funeral director? Well, they decided to get married not long ago, and there was an engagement party on Easter Sunday that quite a few of the family came to. His dad opened a bottle of champagne that he said was 50 years old. I've got no idea if it really was. But it tasted just as disgusting as whine-type drinks normally do to me. I just had half a small glassful. But anyway, I was thinking that since it might have taken 50 years to make its way out of the bottle, it's obvious that it does things very slowly, so it could be that it'll take even a couple of decades to go to my head. It might not take that long. Perhaps it'll only take a few months. But if I seem a bit tipsy when you meet me one day, you'll be able to guess it must be that, since I don't often drink alcohol, so it's unlikely to be something else."
They giggled.
Then Tracy said, "Talking of marriage, I had this joke conversation on a forum once, where this man with the username Turnip Head asked me to marry him.
"After he did, one of the others there, whose username was Gingerbread Sandwich, joked, 'For goodness' sake, Tracy, exactly when do you intend telling him about us?'
"I joked, 'What? Why would I tell him you work as my cleaner? Oh, are you concerned about keeping your job? Don't worry; I'm sure that arrangement can continue if he and I marry.
"'But actually, I can't marry anyone here; I have designs on the pope. Not that I like him; it's just all that money and influence! ... Yeah, I know popes aren't supposed to marry, but I'm sure I can change all that. Then I can make the massive Catholic community all over the world do whatever I want just by telling them to.'
"Gingerbread Sandwich said, 'Thank you for the promise of employment security, but I really prefer to have that in writing, what with the economy and all. And hey, good luck with that pope project! If that pans out, I would expect a raise in pay; I wouldn't ask, - you know me, - but I would expect.
"'Also, I'm sure the day will come when you'll be standing on that balcony with your papal husband, and the people in the crowd below will be asking each other, "Hey, who's that guy standing up there with Tracy?"'
"I replied, 'I expect my old mate the pope will pay you very well. In fact, we might ask you to clean the Vatican for us, so you'll be working more hours and will be quite honoured. He'll send you a letter with his special letter heading on it when the time comes.
"'I might well take over all the world visits from the pope. I think He likes spending time in the Vatican so he won't object. Perhaps you can come with me sometimes to make the tea. It should be good.'
"Then Turnip Head said there was breaking news that the pope had been assassinated.
"I said, 'What? The pope assassinated? ... Oh it'll be allright. Marriage to him might be a lot more fun without him there anyway.
"'But then, maybe we could still make use of him. We could set his ghost to work doing some cleaning. Or it could be a guard ghost. It could hover above the Vatican, and if it sees someone trying to break in, the pope ghost could swoop down and scare them away. That would save money on security. Excellent plan!'
"Another forum member commented that the thread seemed a bit creepy to him. Well actually, Turnip Head could be a bit creepy. But I joked, "'I bet you object to it just because you're jealous. Well, why don't you ask Turnip Head to marry you instead then and see what he says? You might get lucky. He just might decide he wants you instead of me.'"
The girls chuckled.
Then the conversation turned serious again, as Judith said, "Getting back to what you said about religion causing wars and persecution though, Deborah, the thing is that just as the things I said about the real reasons for the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition illustrate, even if religion had never existed, rulers would still have had other motives to oppress various communities, say if they were prosperous and they fancied their money, or because they were worried about rebellion breaking out because some of their policies affected people badly, or for other reasons; and there would likely have still been a fair bit of bigotry around against people who were different in some way, like tribal hostilities and rivalries that didn't seem to have a good reason behind them, like there are today in some countries; so I don't think things would have been totally different if Religion had never existed.
"It's human nature to have a strong in-group and out-group mentality, it seems. I mean, you can see it all the time in schools, where a lot of people get bullied for even silly reasons, like that they're overweight. I mean, I know there are more reasons why some people bully others than just that they don't like differences in people, and I know most people grow out of bullying behaviour, or at least learn that most people don't think it's OK so they'd be better off not doing it. But I think a lot of adults still do have an in-group/out-group mentality, like where some sports fans have bad feelings about fans of opposing teams, - although for lots of other ones it's probably just friendly rivalry. But it does seem that maybe at least some people are somehow programmed to be automatically hostile to people with noticeable differences.
"The thing is though that it seems to me that the nasty things that were done in the name of Christianity were likely done by people who'd never opened a new Testament in their lives! Goodness knows what religious texts they did read; but since the New Testament's full of commands to do things like be kind and tender-hearted, and be tolerant of each other's faults, and to live in peace as far as possible, and of course what Jesus said about loving enemies, it's impossible to believe that that could have inspired anyone to persecute people. So how people could think there was religious justification for it is all a bit of a mystery to me. But maybe people who've got a mind-set that makes them want to be nasty to people will find a reason to do that no matter what, especially if they're gaining some other advantage from it."
Deborah said, "I can think of religious justification for it though. If the inquisitors, and kings who ordered people to go to war to try to force people to become Christians, thought that forcing conversions on people would save them from being eternally tortured in hell, they might have thought they were doing people a service, even if they were making them suffer horribly temporarily. I heard that quite a few wars were fought in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages to try to make people convert to Christianity."
Judith said, "It wouldn't have been logical to have thought it would be good to do that though, because a conversion's only going to be a true conversion if it's meant sincerely. You can make someone tell you they're going to convert to your religion by threatening them with harm if they don't, but you can't make them really mean it."
Deborah said, "Maybe not, but if you insist that they and their families attend all the religious services believers will be expected to attend, chances are their offspring will grow up believing in their parents' supposed new religion, at least if the parents are too scared to tell them about what they believe the truth is in private in case they tell anyone what they're really teaching them and they get found out."
Sandra smiled and said, "I don't know about that! Considering the number of rubbishy sermons I've heard in my life that weren't capable of teaching anyone about anything much at all, and something I remember from history lessons at school about how there were complaints in medieval times about how a lot of sermons weren't any good to anyone, and how a lot of preachers mumbled so much they couldn't be understood much anyway, I'm not sure that could have worked well."
Deborah said, "Well something must have worked, since I'm pretty sure there are countries called Christian countries that probably wouldn't have been if it hadn't been for armies in the Dark Ages and Middle Ages conquering areas and making people convert to Christianity. And it's the same with Islam. There are lots of countries where almost everyone's a Muslim, when they wouldn't have been if Muslim armies hadn't conquered those areas; and you can tell a lot of them are true believers, because when most Muslims emigrate and come here, despite them having the freedom to change or give up their religion that they don't have in their countries of origin, most of them don't."
Judith said, "Well I don't know much about forced conversions. But it does seem as if some pretty insane and cruel things went on in those days. But in any case, like with the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, the motivations for forced conversions likely weren't just a fanatical belief that everyone needed to be saved from hell, but they could have had a lot to do with the leaders thinking some kind of political advantage could be gained from them.
"After all, it would be pretty strange that someone who cared enough about people to worry about where their souls were going to go would be ruthless enough to inflict horrible suffering on them by sending armies against their countries, instead of missionaries who had the task of enticing people to follow Jesus, or to follow Islam. I mean, surely if you care about the well-being of people, you're going to care about what happens to them now, not just about what might happen to them in the future.
"And anyway, you can't claim that whatever supposedly Christian kings ordered their people to do in centuries gone by is a reflection on Christianity itself, which after all teaches that people should live in peace with each other. After all, Christians have been persecuted horribly, and a lot have been killed, by atheistic regimes like the Communists, who were trying to rid their countries of religion and turn them atheist; but you wouldn't want anyone to say that must mean atheism's a bad thing. And of course doing that would be unfair. But thinking that should make you realise it would be just as unfair to blame Christianity for what some supposedly Christian kings did.
"Really, I reckon that if it wasn't in some people's natures to be ruthlessly ambitious, greedy for gain, power-hungry, manipulative, paranoid, egotistical, competitive, aggressive and so on, there could be just as much religion as there is today, without any war ever having been fought over it. The problem is the way religion's been used.
"And if a proportion of humanity's prone to fanaticism, they'll probably get fanatical about something no matter what. If religion didn't exist, it would probably be some political or other kind of thing a lot of the time, like when brutal regimes tried to purge anyone who they thought might threaten their Communist ideology in some way, like in Cambodia under Pol Pot, who tried to destroy religion, and did all kinds of insane things, like making people who were important for the well-being of the country like teachers and doctors give up their jobs and work in the fields because he wanted a classless society, and caused the torture and death of masses of people he thought were standing in the way of his ideas. If he'd been born centuries earlier, with the same psychological make-up, maybe he would have been a Crusader, killing anyone who refused to turn to Christianity!
"But like I said, Christianity teaches living in peace with each other; so whatever wars were fought in its name were obviously not fought under the guidance of its teaching. It's fanaticism the world needs less of, not Christianity."
Deborah said, "In that case, wasn't it a bit reckless of God to have created or allowed the kind of human nature to come into being that would cause some people to become ruthlessly ambitious, power-hungry, greedy for gain and so on? Why would a good God have done that, when he must have known what the consequences would be?"
Judith said, "I don't know. But it's possible that there are benefits to some of those things that makes it worth humanity having them overall, because if people weren't capable of those things, the world might actually be a worse place than it is today in some ways, partly because it might be the kinds of qualities you mentioned that motivate a lot of people to build up big businesses that manufacture and sell a lot of things that give people a better quality of life.
"I mean, if no one on earth cared much about being leaders or making money, and everyone was content to just make enough money to live on, and no one ever got a buzz from the idea of making as much money as they could, and getting some prestige for it, maybe a lot of those businesses would never have been created. And maybe there would have been other bad consequences. Maybe a lot of other things that have benefited humanity wouldn't have been achieved without the work of people with big egos that gave them the confidence to believe they could achieve them and get a good reward for doing that."
Deborah said, "Possibly."
Then Helen asked, "About what you were saying before about fanatics, Judith, are you really saying you think Pol Pot and other communists who hated religion might actually have been religious fanatics if they'd been born in another century and grown up believing in religion? Somehow the idea seems a bit strange."
Judith said, "I reckon they could have been. I don't know much about the psychology of fanatics; but from what I've read, it seems that Extremists have got quite a few things in common with each other, even if they're fighting for things that oppose each other. So if they'd grown up believing in the opposite thing to what they do believe in, they might have ended up fighting for the exact opposite of what they do fight for.
"I mean, I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than this, but from what I've read, some basic things are that They all tend to feel a real or imagined sense of injustice or victimisation, where they think they or a community they're in is being persecuted in some way, that makes them want to fight something or some people, or throw their support enthusiastically behind leaders or ideologies that oppose it, that claim to have all the answers; and they can get a real ego boost from working for them, because they feel as if they're achieving something great in life, which can really increase their feeling of well-being and make them feel more alive because of all the adrenaline that gets stirred up in them when they work towards fighting for the cause. That might often have a lot to do with why they carry on in the extremist organisations they've joined. Maybe the emotional benefits even mean more to them than what they're actually fighting for. I'm not sure.
"But another thing is that they tend to have an overly-simple view of what people are like, and of how their problems can be solved, so they think there are easy solutions, when the problems they're trying to combat are actually complex, and they require complex solutions, so it'll take more to improve life for their communities than just eliminating an enemy or whatever.
"And they tend to be over-confident in their beliefs and ideas about how life will improve for them or their communities when they've slaughtered their opponents or whatever they want to do, because of their overly-simplistic understanding of the way the world works, that makes them think it's reasonable to blame the group they think of as the enemy for all kinds of things, without really thinking about whether they really are the cause of all the problems, and also because of their overly-simple ideas about how straightforward the solutions to their problems are. And the simplicity of their thinking makes them believe their own beliefs are pure and absolutely true, while the beliefs and behaviour of their enemies are totally corrupt; so they can assume they can easily justify having urges to eliminate them, and putting them into practice.
"It seems to me that education in critical thinking might reduce the amount of extremism there is in the world, - you know, like where people at school are instructed to think about how to solve complicated problems, and they have to think about the pros and cons of every possible solution they come up with, so they get to realise that a lot of things aren't as simple as they might seem. Mind you, I don't think most people ever turn into fanatics, so most people wouldn't need it for that purpose.
"But then, that kind of education could be useful for other things too, like helping people steer clear of cults and conmen, because they'll be trained to be more skeptical of what people say as well; and it could also help people get better at detecting fake news, and that kind of thing, because they'll be taught to check sensational-sounding claims with reputable sources that examine stories and find out the truth.
"Actually though, it's not just not learning to have good thinking skills that makes people more likely to become extremists. I read that sometimes, the reason people get to think in simplistic ways is because their brains have been a bit damaged or changed by things that happened to them when they were growing up, like severe abuse, that made some parts of their brains grow in a less healthy way or get damaged; and it can sometimes mean that the emotional parts of their brains activate more quickly when they sense something that could be a threat, - which will probably be protective when there actually is one, because they'll be motivated to run away or fight more quickly.
"Their brains might have adapted in that way specially to try to protect them a bit in the situations where they're being abused. But the more your brain's full of emotion, and the more you're convinced there are threats around that you'll need to react to quickly, the harder it is to think in the calm way you'll have to think in to be able to clearly think through how much of a threat something really is, like your government or whatever, and how best to react to it.
"Thinking about all that, given the hardships of medieval times, maybe it's no wonder it was so easy for some people to whip up religious fervour and willingness to fight, in people who already thought of the world as a threatening place, and had experiences of scary things happening, - although I'm sure there was more to it than that.
"I've heard that other kinds of brain damage can make people's thinking more extreme as well. I heard about an athlete who had a cycling accident when he was hit by a lorry, and he nearly died, but doctors saved his life, and he almost recovered. But he ended up with a brain injury it took years to recover from, in a part of the brain where an injury can change the personality. Actually, I think he still hasn't recovered properly. Him and his wife eventually got divorced, because she found it harder to cope with the new him.
"He said that not long after he first got the injury, doctors warned his wife he'd be a more extreme version of the man he'd been before, and they were right: he was more stubborn and selfish, less sensitive, more competitive - and he'd been an athlete before so he was already really competitive, but he had even more determination to win, which made him keener to defeat opponents in arguments and things; and he was more dogmatic, being less willing to hear other people's points of view and change his opinions, or try to understand why they held their points of view. And he would make a big issue out of small things, like his children's table manners.
"He said when friends came round for the evening, he'd often argue with them and say tactless things that offended them, not listening to their own opinions, and then wake up the next morning thinking of a list of people he needed to apologise to.
"Eventually his brain recovered enough for him to do a science degree though, so things definitely got better.
"But anyway, I'm just saying that maybe certain faults in the brain, combined with certain circumstances, can make some people more likely to become extremists, - although there are almost certainly quite a few other reasons why people do that as well.
"I read that some things that can motivate people to stay in extremist groups, and gangs too, are things like the feeling of camaraderie they can get by developing friendships with other members of their group, and by feeling as if they're 'all in it together', working for a common cause, whether it really makes sense to believe in it or not, it seems. And being part of the group with its goals in life can make people feel as if they've got more meaning and purpose in life than they had before; or they can take pride in the identity they're developing as a member of the group that has the beliefs they have, maybe partly because the others in the group encourage them that they're good to have. And some people feel as if they've found a substitute family if their own one's an unhappy one. That kind of thing.
"And for some people, it's partly about thrill-seeking, getting an adrenaline high from living dangerously."
Deborah said, "Maybe. But it's beginning to sound as if you're making excuses for people like extremists and gang members. After all, don't forget they do some horrible things!"
Judith said, "Oh I know. I just like to try to understand people like that, since understanding them might lead to people being able to think up ways of motivating people to change. I'm not saying we should feel sorry for them or anything.
"I read that extremism also attracts a lot of people who are by nature sadistic or psychopathic, who probably think of it as the opportunity they've only been able to dream of before of having an excuse to delight in doing the horrible things to people they love the idea of doing. So if a form of extremism comes along that seems attractive to quite a lot of people in certain circles because they all feel as if there's some serious injustice that needs to be fought against, and its leaders seem like just the people to do it, a lot of people with psychopathic and criminal tendencies will likely jump at the chance of getting involved, so they can feel like worthy people while they're carrying out their dreams of destruction, being supported by the people they're hanging around with, instead of feeling as if they might be reported to the police at any moment by them.
"So if I'm right about how the feelings that attract people to extremism might be more enticing than the causes themselves, then the kind of people who can get all enthusiastic about a belief that makes them feel as if there's an enemy they can enjoy trying to eliminate, where they get the benefits of an ego-boosting sense of righteousness in the process, and a feeling of confidence that they're really superior to the supposedly corrupt enemy, where they can feel as if they're doing a good thing by going after them, - those people might well have latched on to the kind of extremism that made them believe just the opposite of what they do believe if their experiences and the things they cared about were different. I reckon anyone who gets attracted to fanaticism will probably be attracted to the kind of fanaticism they find it easiest to believe is a good cause at the time, because of what they've been led to believe in up till then.
"So like I said, I think it's fanaticism the world needs less of, not Christianity.
"In fact, I think if a lot of people had had a better understanding of Christianity in centuries gone by, there wouldn't have been anywhere near as many recruits to campaigns like the Crusades as there were. Those were the days before the printing press was invented. Bibles were mega-expensive, because they took ages and ages to produce, because each one had to be copied by hand; so most people wouldn't have been able to afford one. Most people couldn't even read and write anyway. And in any case, the Catholic Church forbade anyone to own their own Bible, wanting to be the only ones who had the authority to inform people about it, for whatever reason. People could even be executed for translating Bibles into languages that could be understood by ordinary people in various countries and distributing them! So I don't know how much teaching about what the New Testament commands about being kind and living in peace with each other would ever have been taught to most people.
"Even in modern times, you can hear some extremists saying they're Christian, like even white supremacists in America. Maybe they ought to read more of the New Testament themselves."
Deborah said, "Maybe you're right. But I'm wondering if the New Testament itself can be used to oppress people, actually. That thing you said about how it teaches that people should try to live in peace with each other might not be as good as it sounds, because I wouldn't be surprised if it's been used to try to stop poor people or slaves rising up against oppressive employers. And the verses about how people should work hard and be obedient to their employers could have been used to persuade people to put up with things instead of striking to get better working conditions and wages. I actually wonder if the Bible or Christianity was made up as a form of social control, partly to keep poor people in their place, by making them want to behave and work hard, and resign themselves to putting up with bad working conditions instead of causing trouble, hoping doing that would get them to heaven and let them escape hell, which would make things a lot easier on their leaders and bosses.
"I actually heard that Napoleon encouraged Catholicism even though he didn't believe in it, because he thought Christianity was a way of stopping poor people rising up against the rich, like their employers, since they'd be taught that it was wrong to kill or steal, or even to desire to have things that belonged to other people, and that they ought to work hard, and that they'd be rewarded in heaven, while selfish rich people would go to hell. It seems Napoleon thought believing the rich would go to hell would be like a safety valve that would keep the poor from resenting them so much they'd want to rise up against them and demand they shared their wealth a bit."
Helen said, "That sounds like an odd idea for Napoleon to have had, considering the French Revolution must still have been fresh in a lot of people's memories! I mean, even Christians might have participated in that. If they did, then Bible teaching couldn't have had all that much influence on them!"
Deborah said, "Well, maybe Napoleon thought the Catholic Church hadn't been teaching people properly before it happened or something, and he decided they ought to teach what the Bible says better. But it's not just about him. I've heard something about some priests and vicars in this country in the old days preaching about how poor people ought to accept their lot in life, and how the rich were rich and they were poor because that was what God had chosen for them or something. Leaders probably have used religion to keep people in their place before."
Judith said, "You might be right about religion sometimes being used by rich people to try to stop poor people rebelling against their authority, and things like that. Looking forward to heaven might have been the only thing that gave a lot of poor people any hope in life. But I'm sure lots of things that are intended for good can be abused, but it doesn't mean they were meant to be. I mean, take unemployment benefit, for example: That was designed to get people through hardship. Some people might use it as a substitute for actually working though; but you'd never argue that it was designed to allow people to do that.
"And I'm pretty sure Christianity itself wasn't invented just to control people. If it had been, I'd have thought it would have been a government-imposed religion from the start, which it wasn't, unlike Judaism in Old Testament times, with its laws that everyone in Israel was supposed to obey. At the beginning, Christianity was entirely optional, and the founders knew it was bound to only appeal to a small minority of people in the areas they preached in. One reason for that was that there were some things about Christianity that would have been considered downright absurd to a lot of people.
"One of those was the idea that God could have allowed his son to be crucified. Not only was crucifixion a horrendously painful death, but it was specifically designed to be a shameful one, stripping people of all their dignity, in societies where honour was thought of as very important. People were made powerless by being immobilised on a cross; they'd have been very publicly humiliated, because crucifixions were done very publicly; and they'd have taken a long time to die, so a lot of people who were crucified might well have soiled themselves in full public view from time to time, as well as being in agony for a long time, while some people just mocked them.
"The idea that a god would actually allow themselves to go through that would have seemed like a stupid idea to a lot of people; and although it might have attracted a lot of suffering disadvantaged people who might have been in awe at the thought that God could care about them so much that he'd be willing for his son to experience being badly oppressed to win them for himself so they could go to heaven and have a better life in the end, well-to-do people who prided themselves on their respectability and decency, and who believed all good people would do the same, would likely have thought it was ridiculous that a powerful God who wanted respect would have allowed his son to be humiliated and dishonoured and hurt by being crucified like a criminal, and they would likely have been offended by the idea that anyone ought to follow him.
"And it wasn't just rich people who felt like that, it seems; I think even some people from poorer classes mocked the idea too. There are passages in the New Testament about how the idea of worshipping a crucified Christ was nonsense to a lot of people and offensive to others. If Christianity had been designed to have been spread to as many people as possible, and it was meant to be something that well-to-do people with the most influence in society who had the most power to spread it could have been happy to pretend to believe in, I'm pretty sure the people who'd made it up would have done it differently.
"It was probably only after the horrors of crucifixion had faded from memory because people weren't being crucified on full public view any more that a lot of rich respectable people could promote the idea of worshipping a crucified Christ, when most people didn't understand the full horrors of crucifixion. I mean, nowadays people can wear crucifixes without thinking deeply about how terrible crucifixion really would have been."
Deborah said, "Maybe that's true. But a lot of people would have had an incentive to turn to Christianity because it gave them hope for a better life after they died, which they wouldn't have had if they didn't follow it. And if the Bible's actually true and people like the Apostle Paul really did perform miracles sometimes, that would have attracted people, especially if they were ill and needed one.
"And another thing: I heard that some of Jesus' disciples ended up being martyred because Christianity was so opposed by the leaders of some countries that they persecuted Christians and killed them. You would have thought that if some Christian leaders really did perform miracles, like the Bible says Paul did, they could have easily convinced the leaders not to kill them, because they could have told them they'd be able to heal anyone in their families who got sick. Why let yourself be martyred when you can do that for people, which would have made Christianity look more impressive in the process, and got even the leaders to spread it, which would presumably have meant more people heard about it and were converted, so more people ended up in heaven? Why couldn't Paul have done that, instead of allowing himself to be killed in the end, as it seems he did?"
Judith said, "Well, the gifts of those apostles wouldn't have been under their control; after all, it was God doing the healing, not them. They could only ask for it. So they wouldn't have been able to heal people at will. And I'm pretty sure God wants people to become Christians because they want to make a commitment to change their lives and be better people and believe in him because they care, not for what they can get out of it, like they might have done if they thought it was the way to get cured of diseases."
It was getting late, and people were beginning to go home. The girls began to think they'd better get up and go soon too, and started suggesting it to each other.
Then one of them joked, "Well that was a miserable conversation! Shall we all meet up next week and have another one that's just as miserable?"
Deborah said, "Actually, yes, let's. I'd like to ask you about the most gruesome bits of the Bible, Judith, and some questions about other things. I hope you won't mind; I don't think you'll like them."
They decided to do that.
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