Date Posted:Sun, 03/23/03 8:08pm Author: sunny Subject: Christianity and War .....
Kind of quiet here lately, so I'm gonna take a risk and ask you all about a topic that's important to me, but I have no idea how it will strike Ndn folks .... well, here goes .....
On the "who am I?" thread I mentioned a little about Osho and meditation, and how this is the path I have found most meaningful for me in this life .... some asked a few questions about it, but we didn't get into it too far [hope I didn't get too defensive about it :o( ] ....
Anyway, this quote turned up on a sannyasin list yesterday, and since we've often often discussed those "patriarchial desert cults" before, I thought some here might be interested in this explanation for why Christianity turns out to be such a bloody and oppressive religion .... I'd really enjoy hearing your comments on this :o)
peace,
sunny
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Date: Sat Mar 22, 2003 3:43 pm
Subject: CHRISTIANITY AND WAR
OSHO,
ARE YOU ESPECIALLY AGAINST CHRISTIANITY?
I hate to favor Christianity with any special attention but unfortunately it deserves it. It is the ugliest manifestation of religion on the earth, for many reasons.
The first: Christianity is the only well-organized religion. The more a religion is well-organized, the less is the possibility of its being a religion. Truth, by its very nature, cannot be organized. To organize truth, or to kill it, mean the same thing. Truth is alive when organization is only functional, loose. Christianity's organization is very tight, bureaucratic, hierarchical. Because of this kind of organization, it has become more a game of power politics than the flowering of religious qualities.
In the past two thousand years Christianity has done more harm to humanity than any other religion. Mohammedanism has tried to compete with it but has not been successful. It came very close but Christianity still remains on the top. It has slaughtered people, burned people alive. In the name of God, truth, religion, it has been killing and slaughtering people -- for their own sake, for their own good.
And when the murderer is murdering you for your own good, then he has no feeling of guilt at all. On the contrary, he
feels he has done a good job. He has done some service to humanity, to God, to all the great values of love, truth,
freedom. He feels excited. He feels that he is now a better human being. When crimes are being used for people to feel better as human beings, that is the worst that can happen to anybody. Now he will be doing evil, thinking it is good.
He will be destroying good, thinking it is good. This is the worst kind of indoctrination that Christianity has put into people's minds. The idea of the crusade, of a religious war, is a great contribution of Christianity. Mohammedanism learned it from Christianity; they cannot claim to be the originators of the idea. They call it jehad, holy war, but they came five hundred years later than Jesus. Christianity had already created in people's minds the idea that a war too can be religious.
Now, war as such is irreligious. There cannot be anything like a crusade, a jehad, a holy war. If you call war holy, then what is left to be called unholy? This is a strategy to destroy people's thinking. The moment they think of crusade, they don't think there is anything wrong: they are fighting for God against the devil. And there is no God and no devil -- you are simply fighting and killing people.
And what business is it of yours anyway? If God cannot destroy the devil, do you think you can? If God is impotent and cannot destroy the devil, then can this polack pope do it? Can these Christians do it? Can Jesus do it? And for eternity God has lived with the devil. Even now the forces of evil are far more powerful than the forces of good, for the simple reason that the forces of good are also in the hands of the forces of evil.
Calling war religious, holy, is the cause of war -- because the first world war happened in the Christian context, the
second world war happened in the Christian context, and the third world war is going to happen in the Christian context. There are other religions also, but why did these two great wars happen in the Christian context? Christianity cannot save itself from taking the responsibility. Once you create the idea that war can be holy then you cannot monopolize the idea.
OSHO
From Personality to Individuality
Chapter #18
Chapter title: The good shepherd -- the butcher's friend
16 January 1985 pm in Lao Tzu Grove
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Date: Sat Mar 22, 2003 3:48 pm
Subject: 'How do wars break out? How are they declared?'
JESUS SAID: NOW IS THE SON OF MAN GLORIFIED, AND GOD IS GLORIFIED IN HIM. A NEW COMMANDMENT I GIVE UNTO YOU, THAT YE LOVE ONE ANOTHER; AS I HAVE LOVED YOU, THAT YE ALSO LOVE ONE ANOTHER. BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YE ARE MY DISCIPLES, IF YE HAVE LOVE ONE TO ANOTHER.
Love is the essential message of Jesus, but it has been lost -- lost in arguments, debates, discussions, conflicting philosophies, wars.
I would like to tell you one anecdote: One day a little boy asked his parents,'How do wars break out? How are they
declared?' He was reading a book on history, and a book on history is nothing but wars, ugly wars. That is all your
history is. The boy became worried, anxious.'Why do wars start? How do they start?' he asked his parents.
So the father, who was very learned in political and economic affairs, started talking about the economic causes of wars.
But the mother thought that the little boy was too small to understand such complicated things and she said,'Let me
explain it.' The mother began to explain and the father became very angry. He grew very angry and hostile, because
he was going to teach the child and the mother jumped in. A great argument developed.
The little boy was very frightened indeed, and held up his hands and cried loudly, 'Stop, stop! Now I know how wars
start.'
Once you create a philosophy, an opinion, you are already on the warpath. If there is ideology, there is going to be
fight. This is the predicament: there are people who want the world to be without wars, but they have ideologies and
their ideologies create wars. There are communists who go on arranging peace conferences, and they have a particular ideology of how the world should be and how the society should be. There are Catholics who go on talking about peace, but they have an ideology; and there are Hindus who go on talking about peace, but they have an ideology. There are even Jains who talk of non-violence, peace, no war, but they have an ideology -- and if you have an ideology you are the cause of war.
A world without wars will be a world without ideologies. A world without wars can be based only on a nonideological
love. Love is not an ideology, it is not a theology, it is not a philosophy.'This,' Jesus says,'is my new commandment.'
OSHO
Come Follow To You, Vol 4
Chapter #3
Chapter title: As I Have Loved You
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Christianity and War .....