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Source: (consider it) Thread: Does religion cause wars?
Palimpsest
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
The organisation of religion may well lead to secular power and money grabs. But religion in the abstract doesn’t have those properties. It’s about how people have organised themselves that has led to religion being incorrectly labelled – an that’s the other thread!

But if we mean “The Churches” to cover the whole panoply of how religions are organised by people, then they certainly can be used to grasp for power and money.

I think religion without the man-made organisation imposed on it is NOT responsible for any war.

I believe the question was "Does religion cause wars?" not "Does religion in the abstract without any man-made organization cause wars?"
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Martin60
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The failure of true religion in domesticated Christianity is completely responsible for Eurocentric war for 1700 years.

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IconiumBound
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War has and will remain the way to get power; money or land. The only thing that has changed in the Middle East is that the war is now for what is UNDER the land, oil.
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blackbeard
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The failure of true religion in domesticated Christianity is completely responsible for Eurocentric war for 1700 years.

Well, quite (for many Eurocentric wars anyway, not convinced one can say "all").

But there's a difference between "caused" and "failed to prevent". The OP was concerned with "cause".

But whichever way you look at it, it's a dismal record.

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quetzalcoatl
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, good stuff on Ireland. This has clearly been a nationalist struggle for independence from a colonial power. Religion has been a factor, but not the main one. As a friend of mine says, the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation!


So, when Ian Paisley went to the Pope's speech at the European Parliament and held up a sign saying "John Paul II Antichrist", it was all just a metaphor for colonial conflicts?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.

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Martin60
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blackbeard. [Smile] (my sop to being inclusive, non-hostile, HAH!) please name an exception. And failure to prevent is fully causal. And it's WORSE than failure to prevent. Christianity suborned Rome which repaid the compliment. Domitian lost and Constantine won.

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tclune
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It sure seems that we've arrived at a "no true scotsman" sort of agreement in this thread. By any objective standard, religion has been the rationale for a depressingly large number of depressingly large wars. While some leaders may have used religion to further their non-religious purposes (a notion that assumes facts not in evidence, of course), it is hard to justify the notion that the great mass of people doing the fighting weren't motivated by religious concerns.

Further, ISTM that insisting that the leaders are a different kind of being than the rest of the people is hard to justify. I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?

--Tom Clune

[ 10. March 2013, 14:33: Message edited by: tclune ]

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Russ
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.

But ignoring the religious dimension is equally blinkered.

It seems to me that in many parts of the world the issues that people were fighting over 400 years ago have by now lost most of their power to inflame and motivate us. What was of political concern is now only of historical interest.

The role of religion in N Ireland has been to keep the fires of hatred burning. To prevent large-scale intermarriage between the two groups, to educate the children separately, to maximise identification with the religious sub-group rather than the wider society. Religion on both sides has been content to function as the badge of tribal identity rather than lifting men's hearts to universals.

And this from a belief-system that is supposedly concerned with forgiveness !

EE raised the "so what" question. And it seems to me that the moral is not (as the atheists might have it) that religion should be shunned by all thinking people. But rather that anyone who thinks that what has happened in N Ireland is a Bad Thing should be seeking to reform those particular tendencies in their own belief-community.

Best wishes,

Russ

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Stetson
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, good stuff on Ireland. This has clearly been a nationalist struggle for independence from a colonial power. Religion has been a factor, but not the main one. As a friend of mine says, the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation!


So, when Ian Paisley went to the Pope's speech at the European Parliament and held up a sign saying "John Paul II Antichrist", it was all just a metaphor for colonial conflicts?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So then, Paisley's sign WAS just a metaphor for some political point? Or perhaps Paisley himself is just a fringe character, with no following outside of his own little church?
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blackbeard
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
blackbeard. [Smile] (my sop to being inclusive, non-hostile, HAH!) please name an exception. And failure to prevent is fully causal. And it's WORSE than failure to prevent. Christianity suborned Rome which repaid the compliment. Domitian lost and Constantine won.

The obvious exceptions are any war in which not all the parties are even nominally Christian. Plenty of those, lots during the Dark Ages and again during the blood-soaked 20th century. Maybe one should include France after their Revolution. A case could be made that, in some instances at least, armed resistance is the least bad of the available options given the likely consequences of acquiescence to (say) Germany in the late 1930s.
The presence of some Christains in the aggressive counties does not mean that they have the political power to influence the policies of their (in practice at least, distinctly not Christian) government.
(Of course, one could at this stage advance the idea that all Christians ought to be Pacifists in the strict sense. Not everyone would agree. Anyway this is a Tangent.)

"Failure to prevent is fully causal" - one of those topics which could have a never-ending discussion; depends on "exactly what you mean by ...". However, the OP uses, so far as I can see, "cause" in a sense which does not extend as far as "fail to prevent". I understand that you may see it differently.

Constantine. Ah yes. Indeed. AFAICS primarily soldier and politician, who saw Christianity as the last hope for holding his empire together. Others may disagree and view him in a more kindly light. Anyway, another Tangent.

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Stetson
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tclune wrote:

quote:
Further, ISTM that insisting that the leaders are a different kind of being than the rest of the people is hard to justify. I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?


I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg question, or whatever metaphor you would use for two things occuring simultaneously and it being impossible to separate the strands of causality.

An interesting test case, though, would be if some king during the Age Of Exploration had gotten a report back from an inhabited island saying: "There is absolutely no reason for us to colonize that place, and in fact doing so would irreparably harm our empire. All the other empires agree with this assessment, no one is going there, there's no scramble, so unless you want to preside over the collapse of our empire, I urgently recommend never going back".

Would the king say: "Well, sorry, but we have an obligation to spread the gospel to those who would otherwise be damned"? Or would he just say "Okay, screw it, let God take care of their salvation"?

[ 10. March 2013, 15:58: Message edited by: Stetson ]

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quetzalcoatl
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quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, good stuff on Ireland. This has clearly been a nationalist struggle for independence from a colonial power. Religion has been a factor, but not the main one. As a friend of mine says, the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation!


So, when Ian Paisley went to the Pope's speech at the European Parliament and held up a sign saying "John Paul II Antichrist", it was all just a metaphor for colonial conflicts?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So then, Paisley's sign WAS just a metaphor for some political point? Or perhaps Paisley himself is just a fringe character, with no following outside of his own little church?
So are you saying that the Catholic/Protestant conflict has been the prime driving force in Irish politics, or the Irish/British conflict?

I think some anti-theists have put that forward to illustrate the pernicious effects of religion. However, I would like to see how they (or you) describe the long history of foreign rule in Ireland, going back 800 years. Is this explicable as a series of religious conflicts - even before the Reformation?

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Martin60
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blackbeard - the greatest power in Europe to the Urals by numbers, money, influence for nearly two millenia has been Christianity. Bar none. The church. Schism is neither here nor there. They've all failed the same test. It tithed everybody and more for more than a millenium. The crusades. Imperialism. World wars. Were driven, sanctioned, blessed, COMMANDED by the church.

Any opposition to this - from Atilla and Islam to Lenin and Hitler - was the other side of the same Beastly Roman counterfeit coin.

In which way does religion - that means OURS, our mother returned to her old and the oldest trade - not cause wars?

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?

That's not a good example for the point you're trying to make. On any occasion when they were faced with the choice to save souls or to increase the takings of gold and silver, the Spanish on the ground chose the latter and the hierarchy went along with it.
(The religious orders, especially the Dominicans and later the Jesuits, were hostile to the conquest and argued that it didn't save souls or win converts.)

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Martin60
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Did that include the Franciscans?

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Stetson
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quetzcoatl wrote:

quote:
So are you saying that the Catholic/Protestant conflict has been the prime driving force in Irish politics, or the Irish/British conflict?

I think some anti-theists have put that forward to illustrate the pernicious effects of religion. However, I would like to see how they (or you) describe the long history of foreign rule in Ireland, going back 800 years. Is this explicable as a series of religious conflicts - even before the Reformation?


The conflict in Ireland may very well predate the schisms of the Reformation. However, the question is: How do the participants themselves frame the issues today? You had said that "the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation". What I'm saying is that, for Ian Paisley, theological disputes do indeed seem to be very front-and-centre in his mind.

And I am going to make speculate that he is not the only person on the loyalist side fretting over whether Catholics worship Mary, the Pope is the antichrist, etc.

But I've never said that religion was the root cause of the problem, just that it might be a motivating factor for some of the actors.

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quetzalcoatl
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Stetson

Nobody denies that religion plays a part. But the word 'loyalist' gives us a clue, as does the word 'unionist' in the name of Paisley's party, 'Democratic Unionist Party'. Now I wonder what the word 'union' refers to? Perhaps to sexual congress between man and wife? Hmm.

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Horseman Bree
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quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.

So, I'm taking it from this comment that the Ulster Plantation had no religious significance, that Cromwell had no religious motivation, that King Billy had no religious significance and that my friend who has a combat medal for service in Northern Ireland shouldn't have received his medal, because it wasn't a war.

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quetzalcoatl
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quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.

So, I'm taking it from this comment that the Ulster Plantation had no religious significance, that Cromwell had no religious motivation, that King Billy had no religious significance and that my friend who has a combat medal for service in Northern Ireland shouldn't have received his medal, because it wasn't a war.
It seems odd to infer that the Plantation had no religious significance; where did I say that?

You know the joke told down the Falls Rd - that King Billy was supported by the Pope? I believe this is correct; some even argue that prayers were said in Rome when the battle of the Boyne was won. I don't know if this is correct, and of course, it is all now woven so much into the various mythologies, that it's difficult to separate out the actual history.

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quetzalcoatl
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Just as a footnote to that, the conquests and reconquests of Ireland are very interesting and very complicated. Just as an example, it seems pretty clear that some of the medieval Norman rulers became 'Gaelicized' and adopted the Irish language and culture. But English control remained intact around Dublin.

The Tudor conquest of Ireland is therefore in many ways a reconquest, and Henry was declared King of Ireland.

To argue that these conquests were primarily religious would seem very odd. Of course, the Irish/English conflict did acquire a religious aspect - for example, Tudor state power in Ireland involved the attempted imposition of Anglicanism, and also the suppression of Irish language and culture.

[ 12. March 2013, 13:15: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

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lilBuddha
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If religion were to disappear today, no one to remember it existed, does anyone honestly think conflict would disappear?
Oh, yes, the vikings would have stayed in Scandinavia, where they wouldn't be anyway, if it were not for nasty religion.

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Stetson
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quetzalcoatl wrote:

quote:
But the word 'loyalist' gives us a clue, as does the word 'unionist' in the name of Paisley's party, 'Democratic Unionist Party'. Now I wonder what the word 'union' refers to? Perhaps to sexual congress between man and wife? Hmm.


Well, at least in the case of Paisley, I'm guessing that he is loyal to the UK, and favours continued union with said entity, in part because he worries that severing that relationship will lead to the Antichrist having increased power over protestants in Northern Ireland.
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tclune
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If religion were to disappear today, no one to remember it existed, does anyone honestly think conflict would disappear?

But this really isn't the same thing as saying that religion doesn't cause wars. It may be that we would find a substitute for religion in this regard -- but you could say the same thing about finding alternatives for our spiritual lives if religion didn't exist. Does that mean that religion is not a conduit for our spiritual lives? ISTM that by this line of argument, we are just saying that everything human is caused by our nature, and all of the constructs we have developed for expressing that have no causal reality -- science doesn't cause material progress, our nature does; industrialization doesn't cause man-made climate change, our nature does; guns don't kill people, our nature does; etc.

At some point, this notion has to be recognized as vacuous. We need to acknowledge that saying "guns kill people" is a shorthand for a complicated thought that reflects the human motivation to having created them in the first place. If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

--Tom Clune

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lilBuddha
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Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
We need to acknowledge that saying "guns kill people" is a shorthand for a complicated thought that reflects the human motivation to having created them in the first place. If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict.
In other words, it is our nature.
The OP asks for examples of wars caused by religion with no underlying cause. For every example given thus far, there has been an underlying cause. This suggests that religion is an accelerant, not a primary fuel. Does religion act as an accelerant? Absolutely.

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.

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lilBuddha
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Simply because an accelerant is not necessary, does not imply that it is good.

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mousethief

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Simply because an accelerant is not necessary, does not imply that it is good.

Just because something can be used as an accelerant (has the seed of accelerant within it) doesn't mean it doesn't have other, legitimate uses that outweigh its potential for harm. Pick any accelerant you like; few if any of them were designed as accelerants.

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lilBuddha
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Not arguing that, MT. We have to examine the way in which we use materials.

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Pasco
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
It would seem wars aren't caused by religions, rather, as it were by the "powers of the unseen world", namely, occult influences that remain embedded in places like the Vatican and Washington DC, both of whom share the spoils of 'secret' (or in the internet age a somewhat not so secret?) symbolisms, passed down from the dawn of civilisation. "For the battle is not against flesh and blood..." There, however, remains plentiful literature and evidence on the internet concerning practitioners of high level occultism and their arts / of 'illuminated' ones, namely child/human sacrificers. In the dark ages, they perhaps rightly felt in their own eyes, "who said we do not live in an illuminated age?!" According to these practitioners there never was a 'dark' age. Contrarily, it is the low level practioners who are 'deservedly' kept in the dark, since only those who have understood (the 'secret') and are prepared to go the distance to be truly 'illuminated' deservedly end up going places.

Concentrated occult forces such as in hardcore Washington DC, Skull and Bonesmen, High Freemasonry, not to mention the cellars of the Vatican all have a known healthy turnover of child and 'other' sacrifices, which of course you will be told 'is baloney'.

Nazi concentration camps, itself designed around an inverted pentagram, aided and abetted by 'illuminated' (assuredly code for 'practioners of human sacrifice') a.k.a in this instance occult "alumbrados" Vaticanists (under the guise of appearing to be 'Roman Catholics'), alongside occult Nazis ('Roman Catholics', 'Protestant' even (yes!) occult 'Jews' what-have-you, ensure a healthy supply of seeming 'undesirables', but in reality helping to strengthen the forces that would be expected in the midst of a cleverly disguised (evil) or "inverted" pentagram. The poor cousin Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews etc not going along with the agenda are offered up as "sacrifice". Others engaged in low level occult activities are destined to remain in the dark and are doomed to be fed "scraps" (ensuring) 'secret' content remains altogether pretty "secret" - ?)

Therefore it is only the fraternity of the "illuminated" ones, albeit by corrupt and devious means that are enabled the resources and the means for an appetite for war...for the greater glory of their respective god (a.k.a) Lucifer. The Federal Reserve after all is in the hands of just such individuals, enabled with the means of a powerful global network and the wherewithal to facilitate wars at will, around the world, i.e. aided and abetted by the miscellaneous secret services all in effect working under the one umbrella.

[Post not aimed at anyone on this board, assuredly so my Roman Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Atheist brethren]

Posts: 997 | From: Domiciling 'ere, living locally. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.

That's true, sadly. And it can be used as a very lazy way of not dealing with those seeds, or, as we know, of justifying the conflict they can sew.

The actual causes of war may be far more complex than just religious idealism or even religious idealism gone wrong, but religion has still significance wherever it's part and parcel of the culture, or philosophy or make-up of the combatants.

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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!

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Laurelin
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# 17211

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Pasco - I certainly believe in the 'principalities and powers in this present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' (Eph 6:12) [Cool]

As to whether the dark powers are as well organised as the Illuminati conspiracy theories suppose ... I dunno. [Razz]

(If there is this supposed constant supply of victims for sacrifice - [Eek!] - then wouldn't there be a trail somewhere? Wouldn't people get suspicious about all these other folk disappearing? [Ultra confused] )

Anyway ... whether or not there really is a 'New World Order' gang operating somewhere in the shadows and pulling all the strings, these shadowy figures would hardly be the only humans capable of corruption and violence.

Violence is part of the human DNA. [Frown] It will remain so, and wars will not cease, until the return of the Prince of Peace and his eternal reign of justice and joy.

Eliminating religion would not rid the human soul of its capacity for violence.

I've always liked this quote by Rebecca West (great feminist novelist, not to my knowledge religious):

"Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations."

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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien

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Russ
Old salt
# 120

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I'm remInded by recent events that Francis of Assisi tried to make peace with the Muslims, to put a stop to the war that the pope's call to crusade had started.

So perhaps thinking of religion as a single thing that has a single effect on our human conflicts is over-simple. The wheat and the tares grow together. Being either for or against religion is actually pretty juvenile; if we're not for some aspects or elements and against others then we're failing to respond to the complexity of the situation.

Best wishes,

Russ

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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas

Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
deano
princess
# 12063

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
And what is that seed Marvin?

I think you're setting up a strawman here.

I don't doubt that people will use any excuse they can lay their hands on to justify war but I'm not so sure that is inherent in all religions.

Tangent: I can't be doing with conspiracy theorists. They are never correct and probably have "issues" they they are unwilling or unable to get treatment for.

[ 15. March 2013, 12:37: Message edited by: deano ]

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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot

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Marvin the Martian

Interplanetary
# 4360

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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what is that seed Marvin?

It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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deano
princess
# 12063

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what is that seed Marvin?

It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.

But you have just pointed out what I said in the OP 'lo these many pages ago! That PEOPLE will use relgion - or indeed anything - as an excuse for war.

If religion didn't exist then those wars would have still taken place, but with different justifications.

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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot

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Martin60
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# 368

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tclune - your penultimate sentence is the jewel in the crown of your post.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mark Betts

Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.

It's a bit like that Bob Dylan classic, "With God on our Side":

*sings*
Ah my name it ain't nothing,
And my age it means less.
The country I come from
is called the Mid-West.
I's taught and brought up there,
the laws to abide,
That the country I lived in,
Had God on it's side.

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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

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Gwai
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# 11076

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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
I'd say that said seed of conflict is otherwise known as human nature. It's part of religion only because humans are part of religion, so I'm not sure that says much about religion.

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A master of men was the Goodly Fere,
A mate of the wind and sea.
If they think they ha’ slain our Goodly Fere
They are fools eternally.


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Mark Betts

Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074

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quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I'd say that said seed of conflict is otherwise known as human nature. It's part of religion only because humans are part of religion, so I'm not sure that says much about religion.

[Overused] [Overused] [Overused]

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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."

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Martin60
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# 368

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Religion is LESS than us. It's part of us. Part of a larger part of us as the highest social organism. And we're weak and ignorant. Very. Which is why real Christianity hardly takes.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
lilBuddha
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# 14333

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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
If religion didn't exist then those wars would have still taken place, but with different justifications.

The answer then is not to continue to use it as a justification to wage war, not to say it doesn't matter; but perhaps use it as a justification to cease war.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Martin60
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# 368

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Perhaps!?

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
lilBuddha
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# 14333

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Need to break it to them gently, Martin. New concepts and all.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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deano
princess
# 12063

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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Need to break it to them gently, Martin. New concepts and all.

Sadly I think you and Martin misunderstand. The wars would still have happened, but they would NOT have been called religious.

You CANNOT stop war. Full stop. End of discussion. It is inherent in humanity. Sorry and all that, but there you go.

Christianity CANNOT stop it. No religion can.

The only think anyone of faith can do is to point out when religion is being used as a fig-leaf for a power or money grab.

So sorry guys, but you two seem to have missed the point.

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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot

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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

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Then there is no point to Christianity.

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Love wins

Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then there is no point to Christianity.

Visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked are pointless?

Moo

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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.

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lilBuddha
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# 14333

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Deano,

If you would judge intent, you really should read all the relevant posts. I've said religion does not cause wars.

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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou

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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368

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But forgive me, I can't back down. Even in the face of war, what you say is the only possible, real enough response to war.

But I cannot back down.

And fumbling my way I feel that we are both therefore right and deano is wrong. I defer to you and then rebound and run amok. It is through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, widows, orphans, afflicted, imprisoned we well put an end to war.

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?” Browning. As you would know.

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Love wins

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Evensong
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# 14696

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Ya'll still talking about this strawman?

Everybody knows it's Atheism that causes wars.

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a theological scrapbook

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Steve Langton
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# 17601

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Religion causes war?
The point almost everyone in this forum seems to be missing is that to have a war involving religion, the religion must be involved in a state or nation – or trying forcibly to be so. Also the religion must accept warfare as a valid ethical option. Given that presupposition, yes there are times when religion causes war, times when it is used as a pretext, and times when different religions on each side of a war means that a dispute which is perhaps really about something else becomes extra-intransigent because neither side can surrender a cause they see as their god’s cause – as witness the cry ‘No Surrender’ in Ulster.

Most religions have started as national and so are integral with initially a particular ethnic group and later a large territorial state, and so naturally become involved in their state’s wars (including, as in 17th Century England, civil wars). Of what might be called the classic religions, only two are not thus limited – Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism has become a national religion in some states and so involved in wars, but really should be pacifist because of its philosophical view of the world. Christianity should be pacifist because Jesus said at square one his ‘kingdom’ is not ‘of this world’, and the subjects of the Kingdom are those ‘born again’ through faith of any race or nation. The New Testament depicts Christians living as peaceable ‘resident aliens’ in whatever nation, their native land or another, a people who may be engaged in a spiritual war but their warfare is ‘not with physical weapons’. So long as Christians stick to that New Testament view of their faith the Christian religion cannot cause wars – though they may be persecuted for their non-conformity in many states.

Only some 300 years after Jesus did Christianity get ‘nationalised’ by a Roman Empire trying to replace a pagan religion which had lost credibility. Only then could Christianity become a war-involved religion – but of course in serious disobedience to the Christian God.

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