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Comment by javajosh | Hacker News Reader

I suspect the term "priest" was used metaphorically. It describes anyone who assumes the authority of God's Voice. If granted, this authority is absolute, brooks no disagreement. It leaves no room for "pluralism". There is one right, what I say. One wrong, what I say. The priest silences dissent, calls it heresy. Most terrifyingly, if the group agrees that the priest has this authority, then he does.

I'm glad there are good priests - I'm sure most of them are fine. But the role itself has a critical flaw. The bloody history of every church demonstrates what happen when men speak for God and are believed. I wish there was a place where kind and caring people could be supported in their efforts to support the community, in general. Because that's the essence of their goodness, not being a priest. IMHO.

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Slightly OT, but it's interesting to note that there's a somewhat-developed thread of decentralization and independent thought running through the New Testament.

The most famous is probably Jesus being asked to weigh in on a political/religious debate ("which city has religious supremacy for Jewish people?") and answering effectively "What matters is individuals following God sincerely wherever they are," in John 4:19-24.

Paul also communicates something to the effect of "human teachers are fine, and may do good, but seeking God and following Jesus is what matters, not what a human teacher says to do," in 1 Corinthians 3.

I think there are other spots that develop similar themes too, but I'm rusty (and no longer relate to the text as I did when I was an evangelical Christian anyway).

My point is just that "the priest as arbiter of truth and central power in a church" is in fact the opposite of what the NT actually preaches, despite its commonality in Christian religious communities from Catholicism to independent Baptist churches.

It's almost like humans have something to gain from power and use whatever levers they can to gain it...

Indeed. I find myself alarmed that in the 21st century so many adult minds have been captured by churches that claim to speak for God, and extract a heavy cost from their membership, and justify it in every way, eventually arguing that profit and money is evidence of God's grace. You, in transferring your money to the church, are acting as an instrument of God. And you've given us the ability to give back to you all the made-up good things we can claim, knowing that we won't be held accountable by anyone, especially not the ones we've taken so much from.

> But the role itself has a critical flaw. The bloody history of every church demonstrates what happen when men speak for God and are believed.

To quote Chesterton, “There are only two kinds of people, those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it.” Pluralism is a dogma like any other. The stereotype of bloody religious wars is a tired and melodramatic one. The bloodiest wars were not religious, or I should say, not traditionally religious. Look at the bloody revolutions and wars fought for the sake of liberalism, liberty, republicanism, communism, socialism, and so on. These, too, can be said to be religious wars because man is religious in the broad sense. What he takes to be the highest good becomes the object of his worship and that which orders and organizes the rest of his life. That is why there is no such thing as "neutrality". "Neutrality" is a liberal concept that attempts to establish liberal norms and sensibilities as the One True Way by trying to pass them off as something prior to debate or beyond debate. It's a need trick to attain hegemony.

And consider that if a "theocratic" power tried to extinguish your preferred variety of pluralism through peaceful means, and the "pluralistic" camp was unable to resist through peaceful means, is it really that improbable that the latter might resort to violence?

> The bloodiest wars were not religious, or I should say, not traditionally religious

The bloodiest war fought on European soil, right up until World War One, was the Thirty Years' War. The world wars' higher death toll can be attributed to 20th century technology; the Thirty Years War was fought with 17th century weapons yet still led to the death of 5-8 million people. And sure, while there were political motivations involved - you could say the same of any religious war, including the Crusades - the driving force was the schism between Protestants and Catholics.

Political and economic forces tend to be more important than sectarianism when the rubber meets the road.

France joined the 30 years war on the protestant side despite being the most catholic country in Europe at the time.

The Thirty Years’ War resulted in the creation of the modern Westphalian nation-state, I’d say that’s pretty political.

>The bloody history of every church demonstrates what happen when men speak for God and are believed.

What percent of wars that the US has fought in were caused my men speaking for God?

> What percent of wars that the US has fought in were caused my men speaking for God?

When did the US become a church?

God is money nowadays

Do churches fight wars? I thought countries fought wars.

Isn't that kind of ignoring a lot of history? ;)

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