On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 2:33 AM, Richard Aiken <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Kelly St. Clair <xxxxxx@efn.org> wrote:
On 6/4/2016 9:54 PM, Richard Aiken wrote:

IIRC, Christianity rates only the most passing mention in Madden, since
for most of that period it was an obscure sect mostly practiced by slaves.

Ironic and possibly unfortunate, as everything you describe is also quite true, IMO, of certain brands of (modern) Christianity.

The difference is that in the modern Western world - thanks to concepts of democracy - extremists of all stripes have only limited access to the machinery of government.

Been thinking about it and - while what I say above it true - it doesn't actually directly address Kelly's issue.

So let me try again: extremist modern followers of Christ aren't a problem in the same way as are extremist modern followers of Islam, since the generally-broader world view of the typical Westerner limits the number and commitment of such extremists. Put plainly, there aren't teeming hordes of unschooled and largely illiterate Christian villagers from which to draw martyrs.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"I studied the Koran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as Muhammed." Alexis de Tocqueville (1843)

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester

"It has been my experience that a gun doesn't care who pulls its trigger." Newton Knight (as portrayed by Matthew McConaughey), to a scoffing Confederate tax collector facing the weapons held by Knight's young children and wife.