Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave998
Interesting info, Mr. Fats, and I am not familiar with that book or its authors. My little short list of Christians and others behaving badly, however, listed quite a few bloody activities that are not considered to be wars at all, but the victims are just as dead anyway. I know that WW II is not called a religious war by that book, so I guess the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis are to be considered to be collateral damage, including all of my father's kin who had not previously come to the USA. I guess my point is that religion-based persecution, discrimination, and prejudices are all harmful -often deadly - without wars per se, and I stand by my dislike of ALL theocrats as enemies of freedom.
I hope you won't construe this as an attack on your counter-point, but rather as an expansion upon the dangers of theocracy as the dark side of religions' hold on people.
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I do not take it as an attack. WWI, WWII, Stalin, Mao, and many others were not religious wars. They were the results of political decisions. The Jews as an example were used as scapegoats to focus the hate on a target group. Just like the gypsies. Stalin and Mao were not religious but murdered all those millions to remove dissidents and perceived enemies. In their case religious groups were just a side show for this. Ad nausea.
As to theocratic rule I totally agree. When a nation has a religion for its laws and/or the right to rule comes from a God it is a theocracy. Nazi Germany was not theocratic. Nor the others I mentioned.