Religion and the Armenian Genocide

[Nick_A]

1.5

Again that people can take solace in comforting beliefs is all well and good...and the reason why religion is so effective is that it has attached itself to the "mommy help me" part of the brain that we as children use for comfort when we are hurt and afraid and it has attached itself to the "do as I tell you without question" bit as well that is inherrent in all of us as children

I'm a broad shouldered Aries male not in need of a mother. My path is a source of "awakening" and not putting me to sleep. Jesus always spoke of the necessity not to sleep but the Apostles slept regardless since one doesn't change over night.

I see some additions to the thread. Welcome.

[Gavur]

Nick_A I know that so-called church we have here on earth is mixed in it every other thing that exists in the world.
But the day will come when our lord will come back and take his real church to heaven where it truly belongs.

[Nick_A]

Gavur

Yes so we mustr wait it out. Our responsibility as Christians is how to wait it out. Do we gradually sink to the level in our hearts and minds that make the Armenian Holocaust possible or do we strive to understand in ways that correspond to what the Christ taught as to what is necessary to awaken sufficiently to keep our heads above water and not sink into the abyss?

[Jade]

Dear Nick + 1.5, from what I've been able to read so far, I can see that neither of you will yield...Perhaps you should "agree to disagree" as it is clear that your opinions are very very different from each other's..

[Helen]

The Armenian Church

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HX5ZKIrB5uA

A clip from an old documentary on the Silk Road (1980

[Nick_A]

Of course Jade. I have no animosity whatsoever. I try to understand as best I can. The fact that I disagree does not create any ill feelings. Been there, done that.

[Helen]

Cappadocia

In the description:

The Arab historian Abu Al Faraj, purports the following about the Armenian settlers in Sivas, during the 10th century: "Sivas, in Cappadocia, was dominated by the Armenians and their numbers became so many that they became vital members of the imperial armies. These Armenians were used as watch-posts in strong fortresses, retaken from the Arabs. They distinguished themselves as experienced infantry soldiers in the imperial army and were constantly fighting with outstanding courage and success by the side of the Romans, or Byzantines."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=7KDzLMWtIhc

[Gavur]

Gavur

Yes so we mustr wait it out. Our responsibility as Christians is how to wait it out.

Do we gradually sink to the level in our hearts and minds that make the Armenian Holocaust possible

or do we strive to understand in ways that correspond to what the Christ taught as to what is necessary to awaken sufficiently to keep our heads above water and not sink into the abyss?

This is to close to 1.5's argument from a different direction Sorry did I miss something your trying to imply that it AG happened because of our lack in belief?
if so again religion is made spacegoat for people;s evil deed's
1.5 implying it happened because of our belief and you implying (correct me if I misunderstood!) lack of it!

[Nick_A]

Hi Gavur

No, you misunderstand me. first read this excerpt from Dr. Nicoll

"Ordinarily, of course we imagine that man can grow and develop in what I might call the natural normal way, simply by education, example, and so on. Yet if we look at history, we find that man has not really developed, and particularly if we look at the present day we cannot boast that man has reached any further stage of development. Look for a moment at the horrors that humanity imposes on itself nowadays. Yet people are prone to imagine that time means progress and that everything is getting better and better as time passes. And as a rule people take the obvious contradictions as exceptional. That is to say, people are always inclined to think that what are really the usual and ever-present circumstances of life in a bad sense are exceptional. You will agree with me perhaps that people that people usually regard war as exceptional. Yet you must admit that if you pick up any book of history you will find that it deals with war in the main, with war, intrigue, people seeking power, and so on. Actually, unless we have the strength of mind to see what ordinary life on this planet is like, we will remain in imagination, or illusion, if you prefer the word. As you know, in this system of work, amongst many sayings which have a great density of meaning - namely, that take a long time to understand - there is one saying that "the level of being of a man attracts his life." This saying applies to humanity in general - that is the general level of humanity with regards to its being attracts the form of life that it experiences. It is useless to think that wars and horrors and revolutions, etc. are exceptional. What is at fault is the level of being of people. But nobody is willing to understand this and whenever war takes place, as I said, people take it as exceptional, and even speak about a future from war, as soon as the existing war is over. We can see the same process at work now. History repeats itself because man remains at the same level of being - namely, he attracts again and again the same circumstances, feels the same things, says the same things, hopes the same things, believes the same things. And yet nothing actually changes. All the articles that were written in the last war are just the same as the articles written in this war, and will be for ever and ever. But what concerns us more is that the same idea applies to ourselves, to each individual person. As long as there is no change in the level of being, the personal history of the man remains the same. Everything repeats itself in his own life: he says the same things, he does the same things, he commits the same things. And all this belongs to this immensely deep idea that the level of being attracts his life."

It is not that religion causes the problem. The essence of religion is higher knowledge about Man's potential. In Christianity, this potential is re-birth.

Wher 1.5 asserts religion as the trouble. I am saying that the secular abuse of religion by politics is made possible by what we ARE or as Plato described it as living in a cave and capable of unconscious reactions as horrible as the Armenina genocide.. In this way politics devolves and uses religion for its secular purposes.

The Armenian genocide is just a natural reaction for sleeping man. There is no God's punishment here but simply the natural flow and change described in Ecclesiastes 3 where everything has a season: a time to love a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. etc.

For you and I as Christians, it is up to us to see it for what it is and to work on our own "being" which has also a benefit for others.

What does it mean to believe? Our beliefs always change. This is why Paul called himself the wretched man in Romans 7.

1.5 and I disagree when he believes that religion is the cause of problems. I am saying that taken rightly, the essence of religion is what allows for the growth of man's "being" as described by Dr. Nicoll and a gradual freedom from lunacy.

Taken wrongly, religion just becomes a tool for life in Plato's cave, and when the time is right, people feel free to kill each other.

Do you see the difference?

[SoSarkissian]

RELIGION has nothing to do with POLITICS

Regardless the religion, human being's soul is based on two things;

1. Belief
2. Love

POINT 1:
---------
A man should believe in something so he can go on in life, in other words he can live and work for. This belief can be anything, but its a must to have. You cannot find a living person who doesn’t believe in anything. Some believe in power, in fame, in, in, in, ...

POINT 2:
---------
Next to the belief is love, everyone of us has a list of beloved stuff, majority of humans in this millennium have a common list which is;

01. himself
02. his family
03. his work/job/career
04. his friends
05. his goals in life
06. his hobbies
07. his interests
08. his fantasies
09. his country
10. his God and religion

Where a typical Armenian will have the above-shown list reshuffled as follows:

01. his God and religion
02. his country
03. his family
04. himself
05. his friends
06. his work/job/career
07. his goals in life
08. his interests
09. his hobbies
10. his fantasies

----------------------------------

What I meant by pointing out these two points is that ... a human being is normal to have a certain belief and a certain love where it’s hard to change. There is no ONE PERFECT belief and no ONE PERFECT love, all types do work for all types of people …

RELIGION:
-----------
Same goes to religion …
We all know there are THREE Holly Books; the Torah, the Bible and the Quran. To me it doesn’t matter, I respect three of them because they all talk about the same GOD, about the same commandments … the difference between those three starts when they start talking about their messengers; Moses for Torah, Jesus for Bible and Mohammed for Quran. Each one of those have its own method of obeying the Lord and how to live, etc. its up to human being to see the most convenient method and live by it. For me, I choose Christianity and Bible to live by…

Our Genocide is not a religion debate and it wasn’t a religion war … unfortunately, Turkish leaders announced it as a religious duty so everyone can follow those mass-killing orders and they can apply their plan of annihilating the Armenians ASAP.

On the other hand; do you think we didn’t have Muslims on our side? We didn’t have Turks or Kurds on our side of struggle? Whoever is TASHNAG here knows very well a Kurdish hero who fought next to our heroes (known as FEDAYIs) we even have a song written about him (I can’t remember the name).

CONCLUSION:
--------------
Politicians doesn’t care about religion, they always use religion as a shield for their actions or as a fuel for their future plans (as Ottomans did) … very few politicians listened to their human-side and took actions, but later in history they were called cowards … all successful politicians in history were solid rocks, no mercy, no religion ...

For me personally, whoever is for the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE regardless, race, religion, culture, … is welcomed to fight next to us.