Viliam_Bur comments on The Problem Of Apostasy - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Raw_Power 19 July 2012 10:27AM

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Comment author: APMason 19 July 2012 02:22:40PM 9 points [-]

I don't think that question's going to give you the information you want - when in the last couple thousand of years, if Jews had wanted to stone apostates to death, would they have been able to do it? The diasporan condition doesn't really allow it. I think Christianity really is the canonical example of the withering away of religiosity - and that happened through a succession of internal revolutions ("In Praise of Folly", Lutheranism, the English reformation etc.) which themselves happened for a variety of reasons, not all pure or based in rationality (Henry VIII's split with Rome, for example) but had the effect of demystifying the church and thereby shrinking the domain of its influence. I think. Although it's hard to interpret the Englightenment as a movement internal to Christianity, so this only gets you so far, I suppose.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 19 July 2012 09:25:05PM 2 points [-]

when in the last couple thousand of years, if Jews had wanted to stone apostates to death, would they have been able to do it? The diasporan condition doesn't really allow it.

You sure about this? I don't know much about this topic, but I remember reading somewhere that 200 or more years ago Jews were often allowed to give punishment to their own people within diaspora. They couldn't stone a Christian/Muslim from the majority population, but they could stone (or otherwise kill, or otherwise severely punish) one of their own -- unless the given sinner already converted to Christianity/Islam and left their community. So converting to majority religion could be safe, but converting to atheism or some heresy within Judaism would not.

Comment author: Eugine_Nier 20 July 2012 05:59:10AM 4 points [-]

There are cases of children of Jewish parents who were baptized in secret by Christian maids, and then taken away by the Christian authorities to be raised Christian when the maid informed said authorities of this.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 20 July 2012 11:23:36AM 1 point [-]

Cite?

Comment author: fubarobfusco 20 July 2012 11:15:00PM *  2 points [-]

It happened, and was a significant international scandal ... in 1858.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_Mortara

Comment author: APMason 19 July 2012 09:32:06PM 2 points [-]

You sure about this?

Nope, not sure at all.

Comment author: TimS 19 July 2012 11:58:06PM *  7 points [-]

Baruch Spinoza is probably the most famous available piece of evidence. He was shunned (cf. excommunication), not executed. Not sure what conclusion to draw, given the Enlightenment era.