In an alternative universe in Egypt

I got this translation in my in-box. This was very sarcastic and just brilliant. But for religious meatheads, the sarcasm and brilliance will just pass over their heads. Its my firm belief that these muttheads are nuts and the fact that everybody and his dog is now getting on the in-your-face religiousity is really sad. But check it out.

The diary of Mister Abd Rabbo (slave to his god), the Muslim in Coptic Egypt
Try to imagine if these things would happen to you as a Muslim one day, how would you feel?

If you got woken up at dawn by the sounds of a very loud microphone that tears your sleep away and fills your ears with a program from CTV broadcast a mass service from church and national TV would be broadcasting it too, and you find a hoarse voice yelling "glory to god, glory to god, come to church to pray to your lord"
of course after that you would fail in sleeping again and would remain awake until you have to get up to go to work.
you wave to a cab and the driver is a Copt who has a tape playing at the loudest possible volume. The tape is a sermon by a fanatic priest saying those who believe in the Prophet Muhammad are infidels, they need to be killed, so you get scared and ask the driver to drop you off and you decide to take the underground
you find a place and sit down in the underground carriage and your are flanked from both sides by pious Copts reading from  their bibles loudly all the way till you get a headache
you are in the minority, almost everyone around you is a Copt so you cannot say anything because if you do the answer you get will be: are you objecting to God's words? and this will lead to a discussion, which will end up with a problem that will require the police, but then you know that most of the police force are Copts, which is another bigger problem, so you just shut up and keep quiet to avoid problems and get to work
So you reach your place of employment and by now you are very tense and nervous because you did not sleep enough, were awoken rudely and got aggravated by the taxi-driver and have a headache from the underground, so you are not feeling happy and still you wish your co-workers a good morning and peace, and they reply back to you, the Lord's morning and Jesus' peace, so you just shut up and get to your desk
you start to work and in a little while you find your colleagues telling you that they will go pray to the Lord and they gather in the corridor and pray together to secure more rewards and after prayer they take out their little booklets with "dua" (that's kind of personal prayers specially formulated using words from the holy book). You feel like using the restroom and you cannot because the corridor is blocked and you cannot interrupt their prayers, so you try very hard to keep it in till they finish
after that you resume your work and your colleague Girgis (George) comes and asks you why don't you convert to the true religion, it is the majority religion, so it is the right one, instead of remaining a heretic and ending up in hell. You are a good person, and we like you, so we want you to be with us on the right path. Because you want to avoid problems you will have to reply to him diplomatically and politely and say, I like my own religion and even if it is the wrong one, I would rather be in it but thank you for your concern about my wellbeing in the afterlife, so he will get very upset with you and a fight will start
so you appreciate that the working day is over and you can go home, so you remember the cab driver and the neighbours in the underground and you decide that your day has already had enough problems so you walk home.
After all that walking you reach home at sunset and that is the timing of the next prayer and you find your small street blocked by those praying. Even the small grocery store has been converted to a small church and you squeeze between the wall and those praying so you can reach your house and you cant help but hear the sermon given by the priest that true religion is Christianity, that the Copts will prevail, that all others are non-believers and need to be killed or repent and adopt the true religion and that those who believe in Muhammad the false prophet are doomed. SO you swallow your words and go home only to find your wife in a state
she tells you that she was walking in the street and your neighbour's son was telling her that the way she is dressed is all wrong because she is creating temptation and she will burn in hell for it and that she is doomed
so you bite your tongue because you do not want any problems because if you complained the Copts would come and torch your house or torch the Muslim shops in the street and the small old mosque, the only one in the neighbourhood, and the police will come and arrest you for inciting disobedience and you might get slapped with a court case for insulting the true religion and then you will go to jail, and if you keep silent your wife will no longer respect you for being a coward and a weakling so you just tell her, malesh, all will be good eventually and they are just misguided, Allah will help them see the light some day, and you hug your wife and you try to sleep only to find the microphones staring again ....

The triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire: An economic interpretation

What a fascinating paper. Imagine trying to use economic models to describe how Christianity moved from being a sect to a religion in the Roman Empire? You see, the author tries to explain and understand how a religion which started off being exclusive became open to all while on the other hand, became very doctrinarian and dictatorial about theology.

So being open as well as rigid at the same time, and how did that help in making the success of the religion in a relatively short period of time? Also, why did all the theological debates around 320AD break out at the same time across a wide variety of countries ranging from Egypt to Asia Minor? The answer can be found in the rational choice theory and the author applies it to the fight between paganism and Christianity.

You see, there was never a question of conversion in Greek or Roman times, you can switch from one deity to another, no problems, as long as you are ok with the Roman Religion (see the parallels with today's secular regimes?). So what did Christianity bring to the table, so to say? and I have to give a lenghty quote here because this is the crucial bit.

Modern historical research ([Harnack, 1908], [Nock, 1933], [Bardy, 1949], [Latourette, 1954] and [MacMullen, 1984]) has shown that the Christian message made converts because it promised individual spiritual salvation, made this promise credible by a unity of doctrine and organization founded on books embodying God's revelation to humankind, and backed this long-term promise with a short-term network of mutual protection and charity that paid tangible benefits to members. Christianity asked of its converts a complete renunciation of all other cults and “insurances” against misfortune and an uncompromising break with the religious traditions that had seemingly made the Roman state the greatest power to date. Against these heavy costs, however, were to be set the benefits of spiritual salvation and material within-group security. These benefits would become especially valuable when the old order appeared to be incapable of further guaranteeing the security and prosperity it had prided itself of for centuries, as happened in the third century.

Its when political dislocation occurred that Christianity took root as paganism was not able to satisfy the Roman's (and that's broadly defined as all members of the Roman empire, not just the inhabitants of current Rome or Italy) ecumenical and spiritual needs.

The author talks about how the Jews were quite heavily involved in proselytisation at that time and how the Christians had to break away from being just another Jewish cult or salvation group and they used the unique theological basis of Jesus, his life, his incarnation and re-incarnation to produce clear blue water between the Jewish and Pagan practices. But this, in the initial cases, was restricted to only few members, admission was very carefully controlled. This could therefore keep the doctrine clean and controlled within a controlled group of people.

But if it had to grow, it had to throw open the doors to outsiders and that would mean that the doctrines would be exposed to different interpretations and then it would again dribble away into sectarianism at worst or paganism at best. So, the compromise that was drawn, and perfectly economically based, was that they threw open the doors but closed the doors on doctrine such as the Council of Nicaea. I quote:

Finally, first imperial favor and subsidization of the church, then disestablishment and financial starving of pagan cults, and lastly the lifting of Christianity up to the rank of official religion of the state under Theodosius in the 390's, with the accompanying proscription of all non-Christian cults, solved the church's problem of adverse selection in recruitment. By disrupting the traditional public cults of the literate upper classes and thereby lowering their opportunity cost of joining in, the church was able to sustain its huge organizational growth.

The author then creates an economic model to predict this movement (see beginning equation and graph) which shows how Christianity moved from sect to an universal church modelling the relationships between benefits of being a pagan versus Christian, the membership conundrum and equilibrium points. He concludes that the rise of Christianity was not a historical accident or an inevitable occasion but a perfectly logical and economic choice made by Romans of that time.

But this does not explain how Christianity dribbled away in Europe nor how Secularism arose from the basic tenets of Christianity. Or how it is arising in USA. Or how its flourishing in Latin America, Africa and Asia? Or how it arose via missionaries in the European imperial times in countries as wide ranging as India to Madagascar?

Or why it did not take root in China, India, or Japan? In particular, why did it not take root in these 3 countries which will, arguably, have the most pagan religions of all (Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and perhaps Animism as well?). Mind you, it is perfectly rational for conversion to happen in these countries. Whether it is because of fear, or economic benefits or peer pressure, generally, you can boil this idea of adopting another religion down to economic factors. As for why you continue in that religion is a different matter and for future research.

This paper offers an economic interpretation of Christianity's transformation from sect to universal religion in the Roman empire. It first points out paganism's apparent inability to provide individual security in times of distress, such as the third century C.E., as a reason for the increasing demand for monotheism. It then reviews Christianity's monotheistic competitors and points out the reasons why they lost out. Next, it addresses the Christian church's choice between exclusive membership and open access to all applicants on the day of its triumph and shows, by means of a cooperative model, that open access and universal membership were a superior policy if coupled with doctrinal radicalization. Finally, it analyzes the theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries by means of a Hotelling-type linear spatial model of doctrinal strictness ranging from paganism to Judaism, and traces the theological choices that were made back to the church's need to distance itself from its potential competitors.

You can convert but discrimination remains

This is why I am very jaundiced towards conversions and proselytisation even though it is a right and its perfectly fine. But if you think conversion is a route to social policy, then think again as this proves:

Upper caste and Dalit Catholics clash
http://ultracurrents.blogspot.com/
Nirmala Carvalho - 3/10/08
Asia News

New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Two Christians died and many more were wounded shot by police who intervened yesterday to stop clashes between Dalit Catholics and upper caste Catholics in the diocese of Pondicherry-Cuddalore (Tamil Nadu).

Troubles started on 7 March when a group of Dalit Christians from the Villupuram district began a hunger strike to protest discrimination in a local parish by the Vanniyar.

Three months ago Dalits from St Jabamalais Annai Church in Earyur built another church dedicated to Saghaya Madha (Our Lady of perpetual Help) and sought to have it erected as a separate parish with its own priest.

They were backed in their demands by two political groups, the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Vck) and Ambedkar Makkal Iyakkam (AMI). The VCK even put up posters calling for the closure of St Jabamalai and the recognition of the new parish church.

In response some 500 upper caste Christians went on a rampage on Sunday, attacking Dalits and torching over 30 huts.

Police said that when they moved in to stop the protest they were pelted with stones and were thus “forced” to open fire on the aggressors. M Periy Nayagam, 40, and A. Magimai, 24, were killed and 40 more people were wounded.

Fr G Cosmon Arokiaraj, secretary to the Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, told AsiaNews that the “confrontation in the area between Dalit and Vanniyar Catholics goes back quite some time, but the Church does not want to split a parish along caste line,” but is working towards “gradually removing discrimination against the Dalits and uprooting all forms of discrimination.”

These tragic incidents show that it is urgent to ban many forms of discrimination against Dalit Christians both within the Christian community and especially society at large.

In fact “since the Christian community is perceived as a single entity,” he explained, “the government does not recognise to Dalit Christians the same rights as other Dalits.”

In the Indian caste system, states have granted specific benefits and quotas in schools and public service for Dalits to compensate for their secular low social standing.

“For years Dalits have been discriminated within the Church itself,” he said. “They cannot sit with upper caste members in the same church; they are buried in separate cemeteries; they cannot use the same roads as upper caste people. When the mother of a Dalit priest died in the 1990s the upper caste did not allow the funeral procession to use the main road; even the bishop failed to bring about a compromise.”

“In India more than 65 per cent of all Christians are Dalit, but Christians represent only 2.3 per cent of a population of 1.1 billion people.”

The triumph of Christianity in the Roman empire: An economic interpretation

What a fascinating paper. Imagine trying to use economic models to describe how Christianity moved from being a sect to a religion in the Roman Empire? You see, the author tries to explain and understand how a religion which started off being exclusive became open to all while on the other hand, became very doctrinarian and dictatorial about theology.

So being open as well as rigid at the same time, and how did that help in making the success of the religion in a relatively short period of time? Also, why did all the theological debates around 320AD break out at the same time across a wide variety of countries ranging from Egypt to Asia Minor? The answer can be found in the rational choice theory and the author applies it to the fight between paganism and Christianity.

You see, there was never a question of conversion in Greek or Roman times, you can switch from one deity to another, no problems, as long as you are ok with the Roman Religion (see the parallels with today's secular regimes?). So what did Christianity bring to the table, so to say? and I have to give a lengthy quote here because this is the crucial bit.

Modern historical research ([Harnack, 1908], [Nock, 1933], [Bardy, 1949], [Latourette, 1954] and [MacMullen, 1984]) has shown that the Christian message made converts because it promised individual spiritual salvation, made this promise credible by a unity of doctrine and organization founded on books embodying God's revelation to humankind, and backed this long-term promise with a short-term network of mutual protection and charity that paid tangible benefits to members. Christianity asked of its converts a complete renunciation of all other cults and “insurances” against misfortune and an uncompromising break with the religious traditions that had seemingly made the Roman state the greatest power to date. Against these heavy costs, however, were to be set the benefits of spiritual salvation and material within-group security. These benefits would become especially valuable when the old order appeared to be incapable of further guaranteeing the security and prosperity it had prided itself of for centuries, as happened in the third century.

Its when political dislocation occurred that Christianity took root as paganism was not able to satisfy the Roman's (and that's broadly defined as all members of the Roman empire, not just the inhabitants of current Rome or Italy) ecumenical and spiritual needs.

The author talks about how the Jews were quite heavily involved in proselytisation at that time and how the Christians had to break away from being just another Jewish cult or salvation group and they used the unique theological basis of Jesus, his life, his incarnation and re-incarnation to produce clear blue water between the Jewish and Pagan practices. But this, in the initial cases, was restricted to only few members, admission was very carefully controlled. This could therefore keep the doctrine clean and controlled within a controlled group of people.

But if it had to grow, it had to throw open the doors to outsiders and that would mean that the doctrines would be exposed to different interpretations and then it would again dribble away into sectarianism at worst or paganism at best. So, the compromise that was drawn, and perfectly economically based, was that they threw open the doors but closed the doors on doctrine such as the Council of Nicaea. I quote:

Finally, first imperial favor and subsidization of the church, then disestablishment and financial starving of pagan cults, and lastly the lifting of Christianity up to the rank of official religion of the state under Theodosius in the 390's, with the accompanying proscription of all non-Christian cults, solved the church's problem of adverse selection in recruitment. By disrupting the traditional public cults of the literate upper classes and thereby lowering their opportunity cost of joining in, the church was able to sustain its huge organizational growth.

The author then creates an economic model to predict this movement (see beginning equation and graph) which shows how Christianity moved from sect to an universal church modelling the relationships between benefits of being a pagan versus Christian, the membership conundrum and equilibrium points. He concludes that the rise of Christianity was not a historical accident or an inevitable occasion but a perfectly logical and economic choice made by Romans of that time.

But this does not explain how Christianity dribbled away in Europe nor how Secularism arose from the basic tenets of Christianity. Or how it is arising in USA. Or how its flourishing in Latin America, Africa and Asia? Or how it arose via missionaries in the European imperial times in countries as wide ranging as India to Madagascar?

Or why it did not take root in China, India, or Japan? In particular, why did it not take root in these 3 countries which will, arguably, have the most pagan religions of all (Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism and perhaps Animism as well?). Mind you, it is perfectly rational for conversion to happen in these countries. Whether it is because of fear, or economic benefits or peer pressure, generally, you can boil this idea of adopting another religion down to economic factors. As for why you continue in that religion is a different matter and for future research.

This paper offers an economic interpretation of Christianity's transformation from sect to universal religion in the Roman empire. It first points out paganism's apparent inability to provide individual security in times of distress, such as the third century C.E., as a reason for the increasing demand for monotheism. It then reviews Christianity's monotheistic competitors and points out the reasons why they lost out. Next, it addresses the Christian church's choice between exclusive membership and open access to all applicants on the day of its triumph and shows, by means of a cooperative model, that open access and universal membership were a superior policy if coupled with doctrinal radicalization. Finally, it analyzes the theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries by means of a Hotelling-type linear spatial model of doctrinal strictness ranging from paganism to Judaism, and traces the theological choices that were made back to the church's need to distance itself from its potential competitors.