The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> heretic hunting

heretic hunting
Posted by pancho (Guest) - Saturday, July 28 2007, 23:39:22 (CEST)
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...the fiercest nationalists are all deeply religious...all of them. I don't mean in church dogma and an adhearence to all rituals...but in FERVOR...a sort of religious mania usually reserved for zealots, fundamentalists and fanatics (but deadly in academics) which treats any disagreement as an ATTACK...made by an ENEMY...but not just any enemy...a heretical one out to destroy one's FAITH...and not even a faith in political things...but in a sort of quasi-religious yet "national" identity.

Even those nationalists who are least Christian, by behavior or belief, were nonetheless raised in a religious atmosphere...replete with witch burnings, exorcisms, heretical views which must be STAMPED out...self-righteousness...a dogmatic belief that YOUR view is the RIGHT view, coupled with a conviction, due to this almost rabid belief, that your views don't NEED defending or explaining and anyone critical of them is insulting you...instead of challenging you intellectually....and more, somehow offending a "god" when you offer a different historical or political perspective...and we can see how many smaller and smaller and more frantic groups they keep splintering into, very like heretical sects, each of them vilified by the others in that same religious dogmatism where no quarter is allowed but all opposition is of the DEVIL and aimed at nothing less than destroying "Revealed Truth".

How many sects are we? Not only, strictly speaking, religious sects, with a new one on the way as we speak...but how many political and social clubs and parties take on the same coloration, the same all-or-nothing..the same levels of fanatical devotion coupled with this penchant for seeing a DEVIL...or an enemy of your "faith"..even where a dicussion deals purely in economics, or politics..or history.

This argues what Dr Joseph has shown, that we are primarily reigious sects...heresies...well practised through the ages to defend our "identity"...which was never Chaldean or Assyrian, but Christian. None of these people behaves as if they knew anything about social discourse, they seem to never have grasped what an intellect is used for...how one arrives at approximations of the truth..instead truth is a fixed point...all the more worthy if it NEVER changes...around which they dance, howling at the moon.

If you hold up the church's own history to any of these people, they respond by saying you are an ENEMY of their church and that you HATE them...JUST for relating their OWN history to them...even when it is well documented and established as historical fact.

This is at the base of these accusations leveled at Dr Joseph...he is not a highly respected scholar who's researched a topic and written a well regarded book...no, he is a HERETIC...he is an enemy...he "hates"...he is an "agent"...of the devil, no doubt...or someone as close to the devil as can be found. These are all the kinds of responses that religions make when they feel their "faith" exposed...they react as if they are being ATTACKED...and that anything they do, anything at all...jail, the stake, execution, thumb screws, hot pincers...anything, is justified...even sanctioned and holy.

While it's bad enough when confined to strcitly religious beliefs..it becomes deadly, to those reacting in this manner, outside of the church...in daily life...especially where academics, science, politics, human psychology etc are involved. Deadly because it severely limits their ability to avoid getting themselves run over...or burned by the fires they set themselves...as we see their "faith" has caused so much mayhem in Iraq...and yet they "keep their faith" and march resolutely on to even more destruction...not of them, of course, but of the innocent Christians among the rest of the people of BetNahrain.

That their "faith" gave them Kurdistan doesn't make them explore THEMSELVES, except to look harder for that ENEMY they didn't root out yet...and surely THEN they'll get "what we deserve"...and since Iraqis can't get at them directly to give them what tehy really deserve...Ashur sends me.

Maggie is an Inquisitor...bending, distorting, lying doing anything she can to expose a HERETIC. There are intelligent ways to dispute ideas...Dr Perley, who understandably doesn't share Dr Joseph's entire thesis, nevertheless was honest and fulsome in his praise...making only ONE reservation...and letting it go...he did not lose sight of the forest for ONE tree...even if it is the main tree, he took the time and made the effort to see and comment favorably on all the other trees. Maggie slammed headfirst into the one tree...and sees nothing else...her sop that she too "mentioned merit" as "all books have", is something she just now produced...because she wanted to be seen in a favorbale light alongside Dr Perley.

The only thing they haven't done is burn Dr Joseph's book...probably because they can't afford to buy one...and they don't dare burn a library copy because they can't afford the fines either...otherwise they'd have done it already.

These are religious fanatics...even though they don't mention Jesus. Their entire behavior and outlook is constrained in the same strait-jacket.



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