Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Yep, I made me up a new word.......

Credocide --

[lit., "belief-killing", from the Latin credo, lit., I believe (root of the now-general religious term "creed") + -cide < caedere, to cut down, kill.]

The acute act or ongoing process of eliminating unfavoured/deviant beliefs/attitudes (and the persons who practice them without actual harm/insult to others) through persecution, violence, murder, expulsion, specialized discriminatory legislation, censorship, brainwashing/'re-education' or any other means other than that of rational and open civil discourse. Engaged in historically by most major religions (whether they'll officially admit it or not) and by all movements typically characterized as cults or totalitarianisms. The predominant unwritten and unprosecuted crime against the human intellect and spirit, committed or attempted by many without knowledge of what they do or why, driven only by that primal urge to remake the world of others in one's own image, regardless of whether or not it happens to be in their own best interests.

Very similar to genocide, but a helluva lot harder to prove in existing courts of law......

Some prime conspicuous examples: the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and the Spanish Inquisition, the conquests and forced conversions of the Americas, the Third Reich and the Holocaust, Stalinist purges and the gulags, China's Cultural Revolution, the Taliban and al-Qaeda, Scientology, the Bush II administration.....feel free to add on your own example or elaboration of intolerant absolutist philosophy/religion that will admit no honest challenge.

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