I don't say much about scapegoating in the modern era because I don't really need to.

I've just explained:

What the scapegoat mechanism was in a non-Christian society.

That the Enlightenment made people not take Christianity seriously, which naturally moved people back toward the need for scapegoats.

Was the Christian era devoid of scapegoats? As stipulated in the article, human sacrifice stopped, and the idea of the inherent value of human life made its way into the world.

In my opinion, Christianity is so subtle that it was not always well understood at the time (it still isn't today). Killing people because they say they don't believe in God isn't Christian...it's just barbaric. Christianity remains the only religion that introduced empathy on an individual level. Take a look at Islam: tolerance is not their forte.

Regarding things like colonization, the exploitation of people was driven by greed, not the church. The evangelization of tribes around the world has not been well understood, and I recommend the book "The Penguin History of Latin America" if you want to know about the context in which evangelization happened (Christianity was regarded by the natives as a better version of their system).

BTW, the church has always been against the exploitation of natives. Pope Gregory in 590 was already horrified at the slavery.

What happened to the scapegoats in utopian, modern times?

Once again, I don't feel the need to specify that since everyone knows. I even put a picture of concentration camps as if it wasn't already obvious.

I admit, though, that some of my articles are not accessible to everyone as they require prior knowledge. But I write articles, not books, so I am not going to explain everything from the get-go.

Is post-modern nihilism not an appropriate response to all this? Post-modernism seeks the destruction of the self which it sees as tyrannical. In other words, it compels self-sacrifice AKA suicide. Some people see this as positive, I most certainly don't.

To revive Christian sacrifice without our part of the bargain—the atonement of sins—seems like an incredibly perverted interpretation of Christianity. You are mistaking Christianity for capitalism. Christianity was built for people not to sin, which they are constantly reminded of. The only thing that scares capitalists off sinning is the law.

It's not surprising that the industrial revolution happened shortly after the Enlightenment. Capitalism, which is based on greed, could not have happened in a highly Christian society. It's a zero-sum game.

I do believe that Christianity is enough because Christianity compels you to do the hard work. But then I am not going to start explaining all the things you have to do to be a good Christian; it's such hard work that most people abandoned it altogether.

We've been quick to judge Christianity for all the "wrong" it presumably did without understanding that those who did wrong in the name of Christianity weren't acting according to their faith; and that Christianity did much more right than wrong. Just look at the work the Church has done to educate people, take care of the poor, take care of the sick...no one has taken care of people on the scale the Church did. But of course, people only talk about the bad apples.

Do you see the irony? Christianity became our era's scapegoat. Quite amusing.

To summarize the article:

1. Violence in society because of the scapegoat mechanism.

2. Christianity arrives, violence is tamed but not entirely erased because people don't yet fully understand it (still there now according to Jung).

3. Enlightenment, people no longer seek God but money. Christianity decreases as the scapegoat mechanism comes back.

4. Man looks at the development of the economy and sees himself as God. Marx says religion is the opium of the people -> 100 million death -> failure of utopias -> nihilism.

Christianism used to save victims of sacrifice from their tribe. Today we need it to save ourselves...from ourselves.