Things Noticeable this week

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by Dave998

I also think that 20th century aetheists had industrial means to make their subjects bend knees or die in horrific numbers, so the numbers were the highest recorded. They were simply enforcing their beliefs and worldview on unprecedented numbers of victims. That is a lot like cramming a religion down an unwilling convert's throat, no?
Let's not be to quick to ignore Christianity's bloody history, with crusades that indiscriminately killed Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. How about the 30 Years War, the Spanish Inquisition, and the massacre of French Huguenots? Should we forget about the deaths of tens of millions of Native Americans by military conquest, forced conversion, and disease, all done by European Christians? How about Henry VIII's murderous establishment of his Church of England, or subsequent British persecution of Catholics, Puritans, and Quakers? This is just the tip of the iceberg, and Judaism's deep past and Israel's violent history are pretty dark, too.
Scoundrel said that the problem is religion in general, and I think he is very nearly right. The problem is the toxic combination of religion and political power. Theocracies want to control everyone's thoughts and beliefs as well as their behaviors. 240 years ago Thomas Jefferson understood that all theocracies abhor freedom! Why do so few people understand that now?

Well as with any opinion there are counter ones.
While there’s no denying that campaigns such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years’ War foundationally rested on religious ideology, it is simply incorrect to assert that religion has been the primary cause of war. Moreover, although there’s also no disagreement that radical Islam was the spirit behind 9/11, it is a fallacy to say that all faiths contribute equally where religiously-motivated violence and warfare are concerned.

An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.

That means that all faiths combined – minus Islam – have caused less than 4% of all of humanity’s wars and violent conflicts. Further, they played no motivating role in the major wars that have resulted in the most loss of life.


https://carm.org/religion-cause-war

Now I realize that this will be attacked, probably vehemently by some, because the source is a Christian apologist site. Oh well.
Of course there are other sites that will have other stats.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by palo5

When I look at the origins of religious laws, some of them make sense to me. For example, not eating pig. If you were a bronze age person in a hot country, it wasn't safe and you were looking to get ill -- or dead -- if you ate that stuff, unless it was fresh

So it was a good idea to forbid it

Is there something deeper that I've missed?

Palo hope this helps some.
The religious forbidding of pork in particular was rooted (punny) in the fact that pigs usually roamed freely in the old, old, old days. They would eat pretty much anything including rotting corpses and carcasses. Because of that they were disease carriers. Just like some of the restrictions on shellfish. As is well known now certain shellfish are poison at certain times of the year. Again it protected the uneducated of the world even the so called learned.

[Mal Hombre]

My point remains,Without Religion what would people in the ME have fight over? Without Christianity and centuries of antisemitism,There would have been no Holocaust and more than likely a Jewish state would still just be the aspiration of a few hardline Zionists. No Islam ,Sunnis and Shiites would have no reason to kill each other,No Al Qaeda,No IS, No indiscriminate killings on the streets of European cities.

[Greenman]

I suppose by alternative stuff you can include Quorn and Tofu and other substitutes for meat. In the case of Quorn (a member of the mushroom family) it is very nice can take on any type of flavour you want-for example with a bit of gravy and a beef cube you can make very passable Spaghetti Bolognese. I am not sure about Tofu though, it looks horrible to begin with, but some people swear by it. When you're a vegetarian or a Vegan you have to find alternatives and these can be excellent stand-ins.

Religion is fine in its purest form of origins but it is the factions or breakaway groups that find a different message to the one actually being taught that cause the problems. They each have their own twisted ideals and then try to foist it on others - in some cases they succeed in brainwashing people into their beliefs and that gives the main religion a bad name. We are told that Islam is a peaceful faith yet these extremists use it to their own ends and you then get religious leaders having to come out and renounce it. I think many people can tell the difference but there is always some kind of backlash mainly due to ignorance-get rid of that thinking and perhaps we might go some way to better understanding.

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

My point remains,Without Religion what would people in the ME have fight over? Without Christianity and centuries of antisemitism,There would have been no Holocaust and more than likely a Jewish state would still just be the aspiration of a few hardline Zionists. No Islam ,Sunnis and Shiites would have no reason to kill each other,No Al Qaeda,No IS, No indiscriminate killings on the streets of European cities.

Mal did you see the post with the %'s/?
Without any religion in the world of any kind there would still be many wars over various causes. Land, ethnic differences, food sources, mineral resources. Many, many causes that have/had nothing to do with any religion of any kind.
What would they fight over in the ME? Oil pops to mind immediately. Then there is land, water sources in a generally arid land. All just my opinion of course. Rebuttal expected by some one.

[Mal Hombre]

I saw Your post,Answer Me a question,Do You think things in the ME would be worse without religion or better?

[SanteeFats]

Originally Posted by Mal Hombre

I saw Your post,Answer Me a question,Do You think things in the ME would be worse without religion or better?

That would depend on how the world, ethnicities, and countries(?) evolved. My thought though is that by now it might be better assuming, big word, that all of that was settled. However with human nature being what it is who knows??
Then again if any WW's had happened and they screwed up like has been done by redistributing country borders and moved ethinicities around, quien sabe??

[Dave998]

Originally Posted by SanteeFats

An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.
:

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.

[SanteeFats]

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.

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.

[turat]

Originally Posted by palo5

....But in the age of science and the refrigerator, we understand more. So I can respect the origin of the law, but keeping the tradition doesn't make sense to me

Amen, brother. Hey Palo, pass me that hot steamed rice and some of that sweet and sour sauce will ya?