One good start towards objectivity is the resultants, e.g.
The figures [24,705] above are sort of a first draft and thus need some polishings and refinements.
The above statistics is since 911, we should consider statistics since the Abrahamic Religion emerged.
Note, just in case, you think the following are obvious.
There are evils committed by Buddhists in recent times (e.g. Sri Lanka, Tibet, Myanmar) and in the past, but these evils are not motivated by any evil laden verses from their religious texts.
The above statistic is sort of a first draft and it can be refined if need to. The evidences and facts are readily available for various media and government authorities.
Note this;
One can refine the above to Jihadists who claimed to commit the above based on their religion or to specific verses in their holy texts.
Here is one example where evil in committed in direct association with Islam;
The above claims by Islamists killing under compulsion of their holy texts is very common. Thus is it not difficult to collate statistics for such religious-based evils.
These evils are motivated by the believers own human nature and not catalyzed by evil laden verses. No, they are not better than the ones motivated by ‘evil laden verses.’ They are merely a different category of evil which must be dealt with seriously and separately.
In general there are no stringent policies to restrict anyone from becoming a Buddhist monk or a believer within the Eastern religious community.
Therefore when a Buddhist monk or a common Buddhist who had just watched porn, then it so happened his lust got the better of him and ended up raping or/and murdering someone, we cannot blame Buddhism per se for that. We cannot blame the religion if there are no evil laden verses that condone evils upon non-believers.
In contrast, a Danish cartoonist drew some cartoons of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Some Muslims perceived such act as an insult and a threat to Islam, therefrom they rioted and killed non-believers because the holy texts condone the killing of non-believers if they insult the religion. thereligionofpeace.com/Quran … -islam.htm
The truly arbitrary bit is that he’s using that statistic to condemn ‘Abrahamic Religions’. Why not just Islam? Why not all religion? Why not all patriarchal religions? Why not all non-eco-centric religions? He’s taking a completely arbitrary slice of the pie because he’s desperate to prove East > West.
Right. Lately not even Muslims in the US and around the world want to be associated with the brutality of the Muslim extremists. During the past year Muslim groups have stood up to condemn these actions. Maybe there isn’t a single monolithic Muslim religion let alone a single Abrahamic one. And maybe the same its true of the Eastern religions as well. To lump the religions together like this is to oversimplify a highly complex sociological problem.
Personally, I have a really hard time looking at religion objectively because of my own experience relative to it. I suspect that other people have the same problem because we’re all situated somewhere existentially relative to it. If people claim objectivity without acknowledging the difficulty of overcoming their own subjective prejudices, I tend to doubt them. It isn’t that this isn’t an interesting and perplexing problem. But, I might be more impressed if difficulties were explicated instead of offering a single statistic as if it sheds any light on the question.
I had used that statistic because it is the most easily available as a first draft. i.e. 24,732.
It was 24,705 on Tue Dec 30, 2014 5:05 am -see my post earlier.
Note on the Sources of the above stats:
Even in the absence of the full facts, one can readily gather a sense of truth [intuitively and hypothetically] in those numbers from the daily news of terrible evils oozing from the Islamist community as committed by SOME Muslims.
If you have other readily available statistic which are reasonably reliable, I will readily accept them for reference.
The following are the main religions in the world at present;
Christianity
Islam
Judaism
Hinduism
Buddhism
Taoism
Jainism
Sikhism
If I were to estimate the number of deadly attacks as influenced by their holy texts by each of the following religion since 911, it will be as follows;
Christianity - less than 100
Islam -appx 24,732 per statistic above.
Judaism – less than 100
Hinduism – less than 100
Buddhism – less than 100 (those in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet, are not texts related)
Taoism — less than 100
Jainism – zero
Sikhism – less than 100
The above refer to number of incidents not number of fatalities.
Can you prove me wrong with the above estimates, the number re Islam from the statistic linked and the rest estimated to the best of my knowledge.
Prove me wrong on the above estimates, anyone?
If not at least give me a clue where I could be wrong.
East > West??
That is very narrow and distorted thinking.
The Abraham Religions are spread all over the world and the largest Muslims population is in Indonesia. There is a large number of Christians in the Philippines. Besides the Abrahamic Religions originated from the East, i.e. Middle East not from the ‘West.’
I have a very strong interest in the subject of ‘Religion and Spirituality’ and thus has done exhaustive research and continual monitoring on this topic.
Being human, subjectivity is inevitable but I do make it a point to be as objective as possible.
I approach to the problem is as if I am an alien assign to Earth to resolve all the terrible evils on Earth and my specialty is religious-based evils.
My first task is to collate all evidence of evils from all sources, i.e. secular, religious related, religious-via-holy-texts, and various categories.
Since my specialty is religious-via-holy-text-evils, I will focus on that specialized aspect and leave it to my fellow aliens to deal with the other categories.
I note the first draft of the estimated number of deadly attacks as influenced by their holy texts by each of the following religion since 911, is as follows;
Christianity - less than 100
Islam -appx 24,732 per statistic above.
Judaism – less than 100
Hinduism – less than 100
Buddhism – less than 100 (those in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Tibet, are not texts related)
Taoism — less than 100
Jainism – zero
Sikhism – less than 100
If from the above, the numbers in No. 2 re Islam do not ring alarms bells, then, there is something morally wrong with the person (human, aliens or any morally rational entities).
From the first draft of the above, we can do more detailed research, verifications and analysis to refine its objectivity.
Seems like you are now arguing against the OP thesis that lumps Judaism and Christianity and Islam together as inferior. By your reckoning it appears as if Judaism and Christianity are no more evil than most eastern religions. Your claim that you can somehow look at all this as if you were an alien is doubtful. How do you know you are not simply be deceiving yourself as to your own objectivity?
By the way I not presenting my views as if I am God. It is open for discussion and opposing views.
If you reread the OP you will note I am comparing the differences of the main neural and psychological paths are directed at. The Abrahamic religions as a group is directed and focus more on the ‘lower’ brain whereas the Eastern religions focus on the ‘higher’ faculties of the brain. In addition, there is the malignant use of the primal “us versus them” impulse.
The statistic of evils re fatal terror attacks [where Judaism and Christianity at present in contrast to the past are insignificant] is just one example of the resultant of the above differences.
The inferiority of the Abrahamic Religions contribute to other negativities beside the very obvious evils of violence and terror.
The other evils from the Abrahamic Religions [including Judaism, Christianity] which I had not highlighted are intolerances, cruelty, hindering of Science, social issues, cultural, political and others.
Another critical difference is the personal spiritual development of the followers, the Abrahamic Religions exacerbate the primal impulses, instincts and emotions while the Eastern Religions take the trouble to modulate these impulses to leave the person to potential for peak actualization of self.
Prism has already stated that his opinion concerning inferiority and evil are merely his personal preference. There is nothing objective about his “study as an alien”. It’s just an opinionated, not sufficiently involved and thus ignorant yet emphatic, self-justifying alien/foreigner/outsider/novice.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam have mystical traditions that probably involve similar neural pathways to the mystical traditions of eastern religion. There are also us vs them practices in eastern religions. There has been a recent resurgence of Hindu fundamentalism for example. So, most of these aspects seem to be present in all the religions and it is a matter of more or less which is difficult to measure.
Right and it illustrates how value judgments are unavoidable when evaluating goodness or evil. There’s no value free “alien” objective way to do that.
But, you wouldn’t argue that Eastern societies are less evil than Western ones would you? Because if they aren’t then it may be that eastern religions are just more passive and tolerant toward social evils that exist whereas Abrahamic religions are more engaged and therefore end up being more complicit in them. For example, Taoism teaches inaction with respect to the state whereas Islam doesn’t recognize separation of religion and state. The net result could be that the society in question is no more or less evil but that the respective religion is responsible in a different way. In the example Taoism would be passively complicit in the evil of the state and Islam would be actively involved. But, the net amount of evil may be no more or less. [Of course, evil is not the religious intent in either case.]
I already addressed that above. They all have traditions of spiritual development. Who can say which is the top unless they have scaled to the top of all of them? The inner traditions of the Eastern and Western religions are more similar then the outer aspects.
Nothing involving human beings has ever been monolithic so far as I am aware, and I don't know how it possibly could be. We are chaos. However, that doesn't mean that certain organizations and ideologies can't be our enemies. I have a dark view of ethics and philosophy lately, and I don't think 'they aren't all bad' is sufficient to justify inaction. So in the end, "Is Muslim evil?" isn't a question with an answer because it is composed of individual humans with individual wills. However, it may be necessary to [i]act as though[/i] it is as a matter of national or cultural security. Or not. Each nation and people will have to look at the data and the trends and decide that for themselves.
I think it’s easier to be objective with regards to an end than it is to be objective about the existential nature about something. A group of people could disagree forever about the fundamental nature of Islam, or theism, or religion, and agree to certain actions to prevent the next terrorist attack, or to ensure peaceful relations with a Muslim nation, or whatever.
So long as they aren’t incorrect, I have no problem with that. I find that people who strive for balanced, unbiased views above all else just become very eloquent liars.
I have no interest in proving those numbers wrong because they have nothing to do with my point. My point is that using a critique of Islam to condemn "Abrahamic Religions" is arbitrary. To blame "Abrahamic Religion" for this violence amounts to blaming Christians for violence against Christians and Jews for violence against Jews. There are a million possible configurations you could lump in if you want to blame more than just Muslims for Muslim violence- you could blame people of Middle Eastern descent, or men, or patriarchy, or theism, or lots of things. Why do you blame what you do? Because you want to promote eastern religion at the expense of western religion, or so it seems from your posting history.
Narrow and distorted as it may be, you are the one that opened this thread comparing Abrahamic faiths to what you consider to be the Superior Eastern Religions, not me. Presumably if it was good enough for you then to say "Eastern Religion" and expect people to understand you don't mean Muslims in the Philippines or Orthodox Christians in Russia, it is good enough for me now.
I agree the Abrahamic Religions have their mystical traditions but they are not the core practices in line with the ethos of those religions. In some cases, the Sufis of Islam are treated as infidels and subjected to genocidal killings and persecutions.
The existence of their mystic tradition will not get rid to the evil laden verses in their holy texts which will be exploited by a natural occurrence of small percentile of evil prone believers.
The primal “us versus them” impulse is inherent in all humans. However, it is presented malignantly in the holy texts of the Abrahamic religions as in other evil secular ideologies. There is no such malignant abuse in the ‘Eastern Religions’ [note as specifically listed in the OP].
Note I specifically excluded general Hinduism in the list as Hinduism comprised 100s of religions and cults and some do have evil laden verses which could be directly or indirectly abused. Example, the Nazi abused some verses in the Gita for their selfish interest. The Gita also verses that apparently promote the Caste system.
There are no evil laden verses in the Buddhist texts except for a few very controversial ones in one or two the Mahayana sutras.
There is no absolute objective evilness, but we can have some sort of objectivity by consensus. If we grade all evils and evilness within a rating of 1 -100, those above 80 can readily be accepted by almost all as objectively evil, e.g. genocide, mass-rapes, serial killing, senseless beheadings, and the likes.
I argued on the following point why Abrahamic Religions (btw, not societies nor Western] are inferior relative to the Eastern religions [listed];
Existence of evil laden verses in their holy text
Malignant use of “us versus them”
Focus on the ‘lower’ animal brain
The above elements contributed and catalyzed evil prone believers to commit evils. The listed Eastern religions has none of the above properties, therefore no potential for evil.
Btw, Taoism do not promote inaction but rather the maxim is ‘Action in Inaction’, Fight without Fighthing, and the likes. It is merely the concept of engagement without mental attachment to it.
The primary ethos of the Abraham Religion is reflected in the story of Abraham who was willing to kill his own son for his own selfish salvation. This is all about triggering the primal emotion of fear, as in;
This is why most of the Abrahamic believers will feel very uneasy and disturbed and some will not hesitate the kill those who critique their beliefs. And worst of all, the Quran and their God condone the killing of those who insult Islam [as sensitive as drawing cartoons of Muhammad!].
I did not critique Islam solely to prove the OP.
Suggest you reread the OP.
I argued on the following points why Abrahamic Religions are inferior relative to the Eastern religions [listed];
Existence of evil laden verses in their holy text
Malignant use of “us versus them”
Focus on the ‘lower’ animal brain
The above elements contributed and catalyzed evil prone believers to commit evils. The listed Eastern religions has none of the above properties, therefore no potential for evil.
The general principle is;
Evil laden verses in Abrahamic religions + evil prone believers = terrible evils.
I show the current statistics from Islam as an evidence of the above. The past records of Judaism and Christianity also reflect the above equations.
If you are assigned to resolve the above specific religious-based evils and you have limited resources, the above Pareto-based statistics will be useful to ensure your efficiency.
Yes, you can tell that the abrahamic religions came not only prior to buddhism and other eastern religions, but also have a rich history to them. You can almost see the evolution of theology between the two and yet most of these religions are still held up and buoyed by strong personalities that defined and created such systems of belief enough to have them named after them. I don’t see it as any of them being inferior or superior based on the merits you provided, merely what you like and dislike about them. I find that they compliment each other a lot and should be taken sparingly as provided and then more as you follow your own journey as each of those beliefs were spawned with the concept of each person having their own journey through life and with the concept that those beliefs, etc. would help others on their journeys.
You could say that buddhism and eastern religions are inferior to the abrahamic religions based on how widespread the abrahamic religions are comparatively to the eastern religions and how much of a worldwide presence that the abrahamic religions have. I think you overlook the fact that people aren’t evil or prone to evil but prone to living life and are living. You would have just as many of those people in eastern religions and their belief sets as you do abrahamic religions, yet you would hear less of it. I think what changes the most is the way of living and presentation of beliefs and the culture that surrounds them and while you prefer one, you are or were surrounded by the others in such a way as to make the flaws of the others less apparent.
Perhaps if you lived and breathed buddhism or taoism or any of the other eastern religions you would have an entirely different point of view and might better be able to point out the flaws of the people who bring forth the ideas of those systems of belief. Perhaps it is you personal opinion-oriented bias that makes you prefer the wording of one over the other. Needless to say I agree with you in certain areas such as presentation of beliefs and style of believing; I do find a certain preference toward how those eastern systems of beliefs exist and yet they have their fallibilities as well, so to remain fixated on any one or any set of beliefs can be detrimental, especially to the point of putting one above another or a set of one above a set of another.
Certainly we are not denied the pleasure of playing favorites and yet at some point in time, one would have to go through and appreciate the merits of each in turn, equally and without bias. Do you really think it is the content that spawns such terrible evils in men? It’s not. Even without the content, men would still create it if it were their penchant; you could repress and deny those contents and those writings and have your self another book-burning and yet those ideas and thoughts do not go away nor are they forgotten. Even if all of history and culture were erased from the face of the earth and humanity were wiped clean of memory, soon would come again the same ideas and beliefs that founded those religions, given new form and shape and new ground and traction and so, too, would there be those who sought to abuse and use those to perform evil or would perform evil even without, causing the formation of them.
No matter which way you go to state that certain peoples and systems of belief are inherently evil because of what they bring forth in their teachings, or are ‘more prone’ to ‘evil doings’, you will find that all people and all walks of life are similar and it still come down to individual choice and the fact that we are getting better with each passing age of the world regardless of beliefs and teachings or lack thereof and have been since our species began, wherever and whenever it did begin.
I find this thread to be a base maneuver to put your established liked and loved beliefs above systems of belief you see to be inferior denoting your own bias and opinion rather than to be an actual and honest intent to establish fact as seems to be your priority with this thread. When you get right down to it, I personally think that free-flow spirituality and living to trump every single idea, theory, system of beliefs, etc. and is far better than anything others put forth and yet still accounts for it and acknowledges the brilliance and stupidity inherent in each one at the same time as constantly and consistently furthering the ideas, theories, etc. of each system of belief including forgotten ones and ones too small to be labeled as religion or acknowledge as groupings of humans who are more like the animals they seek to distance themselves from than they care to acknowledge themselves as they seek to provide the grouping numbers to establish another grand embellishment of reality for the dithering fools that follow cults of personality instead of reality itself.
Because, when you get right down to it, any one of these systems of beliefs would fall apart in the long term if you actually lived and breathed them 24/7 on their own. They would consume you, body and soul and make of you a pawn for their purposes; the purposes of a group devoid of the wisdom they sought to have to get through life as they hastily embrace one set of beliefs or many and discount other possibilities. And, you have spent quite a few pages already arguing the better nature of those ‘cults’ that you prefer. When it gets down to the final wire, it is just arguing without and shred of actual evidence of anything other than personal opinion, to which my free-flow reality and system of beliefs tramples underfoot and continues right on rolling as if they weren’t even there and would I if I could honestly say that my system of beliefs was better and yet my beliefs would go nowhere without the beliefs of others, so even against my own ego, I must say ‘fuck no, kid, yours ain’t the best, just another addition to the mess.’
Other than Judaism, Christianity [0 AD] and Islam [500++AD] came after Buddhism [500 BCE]. Hinduism, Taoism and Jainism also has a long history before Buddhism.
I was very specific to state “Relatively Inferior” in relation to the specified criteria to avoid confusion. This listed criteria are imo, critical to humanity in the future. Religions are supposed to be peaceful and we don’t want to bring religions that are stained with evil elements in their immutable holy texts to the future.
Other than the above, there are many criteria in which the Abrahamic Religions [ARs] are very superior to the Eastern Religions.
For example the ARs can give immediate relief to the psychological angsts arising from the existential dilemma based on the Placebo Effect. Many of them do provide very good social security in terms of the love-bombs they throw at their newly converted believers. However, all these are very pseudo and flimsy.
It is very obvious humans [rare exceptions of the suicidal and others] are driven to live life.
Note EDDY [Existential Dilemma Drives You].
The existence of some percentile of humans within a large group of people who are prone to ‘evil’ [this term to be ‘taxonomized’ and agreed] is well documented and discussed within the psychological and psychiatric community. It is often said that 1% of humans have psychopathic tendencies and a reasonable % are prone to evil. Note the serial killers, Ted Bundy, etc. Those who suffered from other mental illness are also prone to ‘evil’ whilst not being conscious of what is driving them to do it.
No doubt such a % of evil prone also exists within Eastern Religions, but the point is there are no* evil verses from the Eastern religions’ texts for them to feast upon, exploit or abuse. *If any = negligible.
On the other hand, SOME [not all] Muslims will insist their holy Quran permit them to kill non-believers on certain conditions and there is no one who has the final say what is the true interpretation. So they kill on the basis of their holy texts.
I wrote somewhere, I am approaching the issue as if I am an alien [no personal bias] assigned to resolve evils on Earth. My term of reference is religious-related evils while my fellow aliens deal with secular evils and ideologies.
I have researched on religion and spirituality for many years so I am very familiar with the main religions and the Philosophy of Religions.
I am not bias towards any religion and I believe ALL religions should be eventually weaned off gradually in the future [next 75-100 years] and be replaced with net-positive fool proofs methods to deal with the existential dilemma. The condition is an effective replacement must be available and no immediate yanking is allowed.
There are three main variables in this issue of religious related evil and violence.
A small % of evil prone humans exists naturally, note Bell Curve.
A small % of evil laden verses exists in the holy texts of the Abrahamic religions and others.
Abrahamic Religions emphasize the “us versus them” impulse malignantly.
With or without 2 and 3, the natural existence of evil prone will commit evil.
However, 2 and 3 provided the additional elements and opportunities for the evil prone to commit evil plus enable a good excuse for them to do evil.
In addition, 2 and 3 also motivate good people to do evil in the name of religion. Many Jihadists’ parents [from good background] were surprised how the well behaved sons/daughters turned out to be suicide bombers.
Unfortunately and regrettably, that is a wrong perception. Note I wrote this in another thread,
Whilst my focus is on a specific area, i.e. religion and spirituality, my background is very general.
Here is my overall perspective as responsible citizen of humanity.
My vision & mission is Perpetual Peace [PP] on Earth. (Perpetual Peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a certain area -[wiki] and in the whole World. I adopts and adapts Kant’s model of PP.)
To achieve PP, humanity should promote ‘good’ and manage ‘evil’. [terms ‘taxonomized’]
Evil comprised secular and religious-based evils. [simplifying the complex]
Secular evils are to be dealt with various strategic methods.
Religious-based evils being significant will be dealt as a separate specific.
Islam is the most critical in terms of religious-based evils
To learn from history but to focus on the future.
To understand the Complex Human Being [OP] amongst many other fields of knowledge.
You appear to be attempting the opposite (attempting to conflict and demand change to your personal preference). Perhaps what you have specified is your “alter-ego” and proposed “superego” (probably for anticipated evangelical and political gains). What you attempt to imagine and promote yourself to be is obviously not what you are.
