I believe religion is at the center of the violence. I think this isn’t easy to talk about in the most visible spheres of media and government, and that this dampening of sound over religion’s role is causing more death and obscuring clarity and solutions.
We all know it’s islamic extremists. But we don’t talk enough about what that means. It’s people doing what they think God wants them to do. Just like Abraham going to slay his son. It’s the same thing. The reason it’s hard to talk about is because a lot of us spend Sunday learning about what a role model Abraham was, and then Monday having to come to terms with human shields. The human shields, Abraham, same thing. You have people doing what they think God has told them to do. The leaders think they are being noble. Many have PhDs in Islamic studies. They’re not raving idiots or animals. In terms of intent, they are faithful like Abraham. And their people are faithful like the people who follow Abraham. To fault them is to pinpoint the tragic flaw in Abrahamic religion and faith, watered down as it may already be. Politicians can’t do that publicly, it’s a slippery slope. They rely on religion, on Abraham, on faith, to win elections. But by not calling a spade a spade, they’re preventing progress.
And if moderate religious people like american politicians can’t really speak out about it, double goes for the moderate majority of Muslims out there. And that’s where it really gets scary. the only solution will be for them to speak out against the tenets in their religion that potentially lead down an internally logical path to proactive violence in the name of God. they have to speak loud and proud, and do it soon. it’s the only way out. May the universe protect the brave souls in the Muslim community who speak out against armed jihad. They have the privileged position of saving the world.
I don’t see it. Mao didn’t have his people running around killing all the sparrows or burning all their possessions to make ‘steel’ because of religion. Sure, what’s happening in the Middle East is happening in large part because of religion, but that’s just because religion is one of those things of the list of what people will kill each other over. But it IS a list. I don’t see the Palestinians as any crazier than French Revolutionists or Stalinists or the Tamil Tigers. It would be a tragic fault of logic to assume that, since these Hamas does what they do because of religion, if it wasn’t for religion there wouldn’t be people doing what Hamas does.
The lust for power is what is “at the center of Middle East Violence”. “Religion” is merely the name they gave to the gun. Outlawing guns doesn’t stop the lust for power, it merely changes the rules a bit, new names for the same old violent lust.
The first objection is a bit of a straw man. Never said religion is cause of all evil. But religion is the cause of a kind of evil that’s in the news right now. What’s alarming to me is how the religion takes a back seat in much of the analysis. I’m not talking about Mao. I’m talking about the strange way that people fail to see that armed Jihad is actually about religion.
Second objection is tricky. You posit that it’s all about power. But begs the question of why they want power. The answer is not to have more luxuries or bigger castles. It’s so they can have the power to grow and spread Islam and wipe out secularism in such a way that will bring the messiah. Yes they need power in order to fulfill this goal. But let’s not lose site of why they want power.
I’ve also used the religion as tool argument. A gun doesn’t kill people, people do. But it’s a flawed argument because guns don’t tell people to kill. A significant and growing sect of Islam is telling people to murder others. But what might be considered a gun is faith. Faith has the potential to be misused. I’m not saying we abolish it, or guns. I’m saying that when a murderer uses a gun to kill, you at least report that he used a gun. You might even discuss gun laws and gun regulations. So when someone kills because of faith, I think we should report it. Why did the Israelis kill? For military reasons, they wanted to stop the missiles. Why did Hamas kill? For religious reasons, Allah told them to do it. It’s in the charter.
I think the issue is religion. It is not about islam or Judaism or christianity or Jainism,
but religion itself is the problem. The idea that religion itself as some noble
belief system is shown time after time to be false.
In the name of religion (the actual religion is irrelevant) acts of violence
has been committed to people. In the name of religion, we have had genocide, pograms,
concentration camps, mass murder and many instances of violence against men, women and
children. In philosophy, we have had the trial of Socrates which because of the charges
had a religious context, Spinoza being excommunicated, Descartes fear for his life,
In science, Galileo was given house arrest his book banned, I could go on.
I believe religion is the greatest threat to peace in the world.
With religion, you create an us vs them attitude which creates division,
apartness, a separation in people that puts people into different argument points.
Look at Islam and Christianity, the two religions have been killing followers of each other for over
a thousand years, Protestants and Catholics killed each other for hundreds of years which continued
in Ireland till everyone grew tired of the violence and death. I would suggest the single
worst thing mankind has ever done is invent religion. The worship of god has resulted in the death
of millions of people. Your god is not my god, so I must kill you and so it has been for thousands of years.
Remove religion and remove the greatest cause of misery the world has ever seen.
Because of religion, people have killed their children, denounced their children because
the children have “violated” gods law and what law have the children broken? often times
it is just falling in love with the wrong person or being gay. If gods law demand we must
kill our children, if god’s law demand we abandon our children then god’s law must be
abandoned. For to choose god over our children is wrong. I am not even talking about if
god even exists, no, I am just talking about cruelty of choosing an abstract god over living children.
Religion divides us, separates us, causes misery and allows cruelty. If you want one thing done
to heal the world, to finally bring us peace as we claim we want, to finally give us true hope, we
must abandon religion. To find true salvation, we must give up religion and our pursuit of god,
then and only then will we find peace and happiness.
People don't fail to see it. They refuse to talk about it because it is believed racist. That's the long and the short of it. It makes people feel magnanimous and wise to deny that two sides are fighting because one of them has a violent ideology, and to look for complex socioeconomic factors that preserve egalitarian ideas by holding both sides equally accountable. So, the problems in the Middle East aren't because of [i]religion[/i], they are because of A religion, Islam.
reading some conservatives comments about the passing of Robin Williams leads
me to a slightly different place. Many have stated RW will go to hell because
he committed suicide. Most people who follow religions often, (note the word often)
have very judgemental idea’s. They use religions to make judgements about others.
God has condemned him to hell because he killed himself. Having belief doesn’t allow
one to make judgements about people. this judgemental attitude allows people to
attack people physically and with words. Israel attacks Gaza and the palestinians
attack Israel and both do so from feeling entitled to do so because of religion.
I am right to do so because I believe in god, (whatever his name). I am favored by god
because I believe so I can shell the other guys, the nonbelievers. So who is right? No one because
no one is acting with compassion or understanding. being human rises above religions or nationality
or gender because regardless of our religion or nationality or gender or race, we are still human
beings. Our uniformity out ways our differences and we must reject judgemental attacks on people
based on differences.
There are only two positions; either he’s going to hell, or he’s going to oblivion. Either way, he’s far worse off and you’d be crazy to support what he did. What do you want, conservatives to make up a brand new religion in which suicides get rewarded just to avoid saying something uncomfortable about Robin Williams? Making shit up to appease immediate sentiment it the left’s department.
Peter Kropotkin: reading some conservatives comments about the passing of Robin Williams leads
me to a slightly different place. Many have stated RW will go to hell because
he committed suicide."
U: There are only two positions; either he’s going to hell, or he’s going to oblivion. Either way, he’s far worse off and you’d be crazy to support what he did. What do you want, conservatives to make up a brand new religion in which suicides get rewarded just to avoid saying something uncomfortable about Robin Williams? Making shit up to appease immediate sentiment it the left’s department.
K: And how do you know he is far worse off? I do respect his decision even if it is one I would not make for myself.
Pain is pain and enough pain drives people to think about death. It is not about saying anything about anybody nor
is it about any supposed appeasement. It is about people choices and their choice to be or not to be.
Camus once wrote a book where he stated that suicide is the only real choice people had in their lives.
I’m not so sure about that, but it is a choice and we must increase people’s private choices even if we don’t
approve of their choices. Public actions are public and thus subject to laws and the like. I cannot and will not
judge others based on private and personal actions just because it is not the choice I would have made.
U: How do I know nothingness is worse than being an idle millionaire? Call it a hunch.
K: Thank you for admitting it is nothing I.E no god, no heaven, no hell,
secondly, if you are in a great deal of pain, nothingness (the lack of pain) is better
than being in pain.
U: The difference between private and public actions is make-believe.
K: are you seriously trying to say there is no difference between public actions
and private actions? Try this, have sex with someone in private and see what happens, then
have sex in public, say the steps of the local library. One is acceptable, one is not, private vs public.
Let me know after they release you from jail how that public, private thing worked out for you.
Uccisore, I don’t agree that talking about religion as the problem in the Mid East is construed as racism. I think it’s construed as a can of worms. Religious tolerance is table stakes for politicians. If one dared implicate faith as a problem, it wouldn’t be called racism. It would be called atheism.
Problem is, yes right now it happens to be Islam. But what I’m pointing out is that Islam is only doing what all religions profess to do, namely follow God faithfully w/o question. Again, Islam can be boiled down to faith, and is an example of how faith, such as Abrahamic-style faith, is a flawed concept.
Problem is, if you believe in God, then you won’t believe in the reasoning behind what I’m saying.
So Id never say like PK religion needs to be abolished for peace to flourish. I’m saying that to be intellectually honest, we must acknowledge that Islamic terrorism is made possible by faith.
If Christians are allowed to believe in Hell and act on that belief by praying to Jesus, then why is it so shocking (or more indictable) that Islamic people believe in Allah and that they want to do what he says? Faith doesn’t demand or even allow us to judge the merit of our deities’ commands. It demands precisely the opposite. The command is “good” because it was commanded. There is no room for human opinion. If Jesus instructs to eat your baby, you will. Ergo, a god can command anything, and faith will always assume that thing is good and right. This is the tragic past due of faith. Socrates pointed this out in Euthyphro I believe.
It is about religion which is about power, at least the feeling of it. And this in turn is what gets boys to mass rape and bury children. They simply love to run around with guns and drive tanks, and religion is the perfect way to justify such behavior.
But indeed religion is only a means, the real drive is the powerlusting that characterizes man and signifies his most ambitious acts. Religions and political philosophies are such acts. They are means to justify violence.
See the teaching Arjuna received on Kurukshetra. Such honesty is unique, but what was said is crucial to all mass-aims. “Lose yourself to find your worth!”
I’m going to reject the idea that “will to power” is the prime mover of armed jihad. That’s just projection. They are not looking for power unless you equate power with an after life, or if you equate serving an omnipotent being as a way to source a kind of power.
Zionism at the heart of Middle East violence. Religion is just a tool. The question is who is holding the tools. There is no Islamic power. They are all being used. By a delusional, hate-filled country in Israel.
Or is it about scarcity of resources, individuals and groups seeking power and using ideology - whatever will work best with the people at hand and accessible to their propaganda to get them to do their bidding. Cynically or unconsciously. To blame religion in general, you need to somehow demonstrate that without religion the kinds of actions you are concerned about would take place less. I don’t think this is clear at all and Uccisore’s examples are not part of a straw man, I think, but examples to show that it is not clear. IOW to couch his post as a stating that you think all evil comes from religion is a straw man on your part.
Economics, follow the money. All conflicts throughout all human history has been about "I value(money) what you have and I want it even if I have to take it from you . Terms like Religion, Freedom, Communism, Socialism are just tools used to create enough fear, to get others the (majority) to do the dirty work for the benefit of the few.
I completely disagree. Blaming Islam for what Hamas does is seen as the worst kind of bigotry and ignorance. Maybe racism is the wrong word for it, but it's certainly analogous. It's just one of those things you aren't allowed to say, but everybody acknowledges under their breath. I'm not even thinking about politicians, though you're right, they have a slightly different can of worms to deal with. I'm talking about just regular folks having regular conversations; the idea that Islam is responsible for what Muslims do is seen as profoundly ignorant, despite a lack of any evidence to the contrary.
Everything is a flawed concept if your approach to the concept is to boil it down to a catch phrase like that! If science is nothing more than "Conducting experiments in the name of furthering human knowledge" or if capitalism is "Pursuing any ends for the profit motive", then these things are terrible as well, and terrible things have been done in their names. Same with any other -ism.
In your last thread about this subject you cautioned against equivocating or making both sides seem equal out of proportion to the evidence (or you linked to ssomebody who cautioned so). I think that's what you're doing here. Islam isn't representative of all religion, or faith as a concept.
And now you're giving yourself a cheap escape- if anybody disagrees with you, you just need to see if they are a theist. If they are, no need for further discussion. That simply isn't true. If your argument is a good one, then theists, atheists and everybody else (if those groups aren't all inclusive as is) will be able to see it as such.
Of course it is. It’s also made possible by literacy, geometry, memory, and any other of other basic human faculties you could list.
It's not shocking at all. It's not even indictable. What's indictable is that they are murdering people. That they are murdering people isn't phased by the fact they are doing it for religious reasons. Try to kill me and my friends, I stop you. If you are doing it because you think you will be rewarded in the afterlife, well- best of luck to you with that. Doesn't affect my response to you in the slightest. The role of understanding Islam here isn't to figure out what we need to ban or do away with as a society. The
role is to use it as a predictor of who our enemies are as we think tactically (not politically) about the situation.
And yet people of faith do exactly that all the time.
You’re creating a portrayal of religious faith that you know isn’t true in order to shore up a political position that you (by inference) must know is false. Why?