Tbogg lays into a Vodkapundit post, and then the commenters have at it.
The really fun part is how several of them call VPundit Steve an idiot, represented thusly -
This is rich...the Thirty Years War. That war lasted so long, and killed so many people (the population of Germany was reduced by a third), that Christendom lost its bloodlust.
And for the next four hundred years up through today, European Christians have never again fought another war...right?
Wingnut History - it's craptacular.
Or -
Vodka is not exactly the brightest fellow in blogs, though, is he?He's the only blogger I've read who turned out to be far stupider than his average commenter.
Steve's point sailed directly over their little noggins. Commenter Ardsgaine points out -
I think you've misconstrued his point. I take him to be saying that after the Thirty-Year's War is when Christianity began to rethink the whole idea of having a state religion and making war solely for the purpose of converting people. I mean, WWI wasn't about converting people to a particular religious viewpoint, right? Same with WWII? Not that religious warfare went totally out of style, but if you had to pick a point at which it started to not be so popular, that would be a good pick, I think.
But we all like to think we're smarter than our ideological opponents, no?
Posted by Walter at February 27, 2006 08:23 AMPretty much every European colonial project was in the name of bringing Christ to the benighted. Even McKinley held onto the Philippines to "bring the blessings of Christianity" to (Romish) them. That campaign alone cost 100,000 dead civilians. That takes us right up to the beginning of the 20th Century. After that "we" (the West?) had other causes for which to crusade, down to this very day.
Posted by: Jim Henley at February 27, 2006 05:37 PM"Pretty much every European colonial project was in the name of bringing Christ to the benighted."
Primary motivation or pretext?
As for other causes, I'll be the first to point out that much of the violence western nations do is guided by bad philosophy and ideologies no better than various religions.
Posted by: Walter at February 27, 2006 07:26 PMIt was said of the missionaries in Hawaii that "They came to do good, and stayed to do very, very well." That was one of the less violent examples, but it shows, I think, how unlikely it is that you can disentangle principle from pretext.
I do think that as turn-of-the-millenium cosmopolitans we have a hard time appreciating the ubiquity of religious feeling in even the 19th century.
Another issue, though, is the idea that whatever we happen to be doing at the time is good or at least unexceptionable *at the time*, while as soon as we've decided to leave some barbarity behind it's No Fair for anyone else to try it. Ethnic cleansing? Bombing civilians? When it was convenient to the West that we do these things we concocted elaborate justifications for them. Now that we have new capabilities (precision bombing e.g.) and preoccupations, we expect everyone to follow new rules to suit them. Everyone is supposed to stick to our playing field, and we're always the Competition Committee.
Posted by: Jim Henley at February 28, 2006 08:06 AM