Does the Bible abet violence and forced conversions of people to Christianity against their will?, why then did the Colonials do so and even violently kill tribespeople in the Americas?
This is a blog entry that I wished to write on this topic for a long time. Too many proponents of the Hindutuva ideology in India (and also Muslims around the world in response to Christians making the well-founded statement that Islam spread by the sword historically) not only believe but spread lies about Christianity being inherently violent and they usually point to events like the Portuguese conversion of Hindus in Goa to Catholicism for instance or the destruction of native American tribes at the hands of the White people (Spaniards, French, Dutch and English) who settled in those countries. My objective here is not to deny that these violent events happened, rather to point out that violence was neither abetted by Christ in the Gospels nor did Jesus' first disciples and apostles resort to the use of weapons and organised use of fear to spread Christianity the same way Islam's first followers did for instance. i) The Beginnings - Jesus and t...