The Irony of it all .......

Don't you just love the irony of it. Look at this picture. Remind you of someone? It's the face that many renaissance painters used when depicting Jesus. And it continues to be the face that many people think of as Jesus.

It's actually Cesar Borgia, the illegitimate son of Pope Alexander VI (Pope from 1493-1502). Pope Alexander has the reputation of being the most Machiavellian of the renaissance Popes - plotting, poisoning, nepotism, scheming, enriching the Borgia family at the expense of the Catholic Church. Cesar is supposed to have murdered his older brother to become the Pope's favourite. He was made a Bishop at the age of 15 and a Cardinal at the age of 18. He was the first person ever to resign as a Cardinal so that he could get more money and power through conquest of Northern and Central Italian states.

Machiavelli was a great fan and many of Cesar's exploits are cited in "The Prince" as guides to governance. For example on New Year's Eve in 1503 he invited to a meeting in Sinigallia three of his captains who had been questioning his aims and methods so that they could sort out their differences in a civilised manner. When they got there he had them imprisoned, tortured and murdered. Good stuff.

In his time he was the feared warlord of Italy - people dreaded coming under his spotlight because often it lead to a painful death. His was one of the best known faces at the time. So who's face do you think was often used by renaissance painters when they were creating their masterpieces for the Catholic Church (i.e. Pope Alexander VI)?

So, thanks to the Catholic Church, the most recognised face of Christ is actually that of a mass murderer and tyrant. Don't you just love the irony?

Why religion damages society (1)

Most of the things that makes our lives better come about because of human discovery - cars, computers, medicines, public health, high food production, and so on. Take these away and life gets shorter, more painful and a fight just to survive. Just look at the difference between life here in the developed world and life in the third world.

The thing is that these advances in human knowledge come about because we have inquisitive minds. Why does that happen? How does that happen? And by trying to answer these questions we make discoveries and progress is made.

The problem with religion is that it deliberately tries to styphle these inquiries because they say they have the answers. "Why does this happen? - because God says so" or "How does this happen? - by God saying it should". Islam says that everything you ever need to know is in the Koran - that book written 1200 years ago out of a guy's dreams. So no need for any other research or inquiry. Look how the Catholic Church tried to stop Galileo from pursuing his theories on the sun, the planets and the universe, because they felt that everything you needed to know was in the Bible.

Thank god that the power of the christian church waned enough to let true scientific discovery develop. If the church had its way, we would all be living like the third world.