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Yeah sorry Tim, that line was in reference to a similar one Adolf Hitler made supporting the brutality of German forces in Poland. Still though, it is probably one of the least known atrocities that I can think of.

So I guess the answer is no, you can't name one. That is the point. I didnn't say there would have never been any war. I just said religion has a lot to do with it.

People who never saw the bible would think badly of it after reading that stuff, which is the same thing I thought after reading all that stuff a little at a time as I read the whole thing. I fail to see what you are getting at.

All I said was that kind of stuff is in the bible. People did not believe me so I posted it. That is all I did. What do you want me to do?

I honestly thought it was a rhetorical question. History is full of secular wars. For example, the present fighting in Kenya started over a rigged election. As far as I know, religion played no role in initiating hostilities there.

Meanwhile, I agree that someone who'd never read the bible might form an negative opinion of it after reading a collection of passages that you selected specifically to illustrate a point. What does that prove?

Ok, you've got me there. There is at least that one conflict, all be it a mild one, that has absolutely nothing to do with religion. I stand corrected on that point.

On the second point, yes that proves nothing. I was responding to Tim's comment. Besides that if you think those bible verses sound harsh, you should see what's in the Koran. It's even worse.

Let me list all current conflict caused by religion.

America:

Terrorism of abortion doctors and other medical staff by Christian extremists

terrorism of homosexuals by Christians extremists

general terrorism violence, and mass suicides by cults, Christian and otherwise

general terrorism by Muslim extremists

Other countries:
General terrorism by Muslim extremists in various countries not related to any actual wars

Rwandan genocide of Tutsi minority

Darfur crisis

Sudan's Muslim controlled government bombings and attempted genocide of Christians in southern Sudan

Indirectly, the fallout from darfur has led to Sudanese militants attacking Chadian forces, with violent reprisals from Chad

ongoing problems in Somalia

Sunni Shiite conflict in Iraq's civil war

Sunni Shiite conflict in other Muslim countries

Turkey vs Kurds (both Turkish and Iraqi)

Pakistan vs India in Kashmir region

foreign Muslim terrorism of UN troops and Iraqi civilians

Afghanistan

IRA in Northern Ireland

Chechen Muslim terrorism in Russia and former Soviet countries

Israel vs Palestinians

Israel vs Lebanese militants

Israel vs Syria (this may technically be over and it is kind of related to Lebanon.)

South African witch burnings

Sri Lankan Tamil rebellion

Ugandan civil war



That is just what I can think of offhand, and just what is ongoing at this time. It also is only conflicts and doesn't count religion based human rights violations.

Ironman I thought I named a few. Aren't the Rwandan Genocide and the Turkish/Kurd conflict ethnic, not religious?

Oh yea you did name some, I missed that. You are right about the Columbian civil war. The Liberian was over in 2003 so it isn't current. I didn't want to include past conflicts because there are too many past ones over religion to name. It would be bad enough if I just went back to 1990.

The Rwandan genocide was based on race and class, but it had a lot of church participation. The Church participation was in the 90's, but the conflict is still going on so that is kind of borderline.

The Turkey Kurdistan thing has conflicting reports It is between different versions of Islam, but there were other nonreligious events that started it.

Chechnya is Muslim terrorists.


But still religion is the cause of most of it. Besides that their religions condone ethnic cleansing.

Religion is often an excuse or the justification but that doesn't make it the cause. The Muslim religion does not condone most of what is done in it's name any more than the Christian religion condoned the crusades or the Inquisition. It's the people who have corrupted religion for power and personal gain that cause these atrocities.

If you read the bible and koran it does justify all that. It is the more modern moderates who have softened it.

You can find things that are both good and evil that are contradictory in the various religious texts. That's because they were written in the bronze age, by bronze age people with bronze age morality. Just read books from 100 years ago and see how people back then seem like major bigots. That's because the times have changed. What was in the 100 year old books was socially acceptable 100 years ago, but looks like bigoted hate speech by todays standards. Same thing with books from 1500 to 5000 years ago. They were socially acceptable at the time, but they seem brutal and barbaric by todays standards.

So you can take verses to support anything you want to do good, evil or indifferent. Frequently religion IS the cause. Group A feels they are right and group B is wrong and so they must destroy group B. Group A feels they are chosen by God.

The terrorists honestly do believe they are in the right. They are not making excuses or justifying anything. They believe it as much as you can believe anything. Bush really does believe he is an instrument of God just like he said. He isn't making it up to get away with anything, he is dead serious.

The Crusades are justified by the bible. It is ok to wipe out opposing tribes on the holy land, genocide is ok by the bible. You only have to love your NEIGHBOR (Which originally meant other jews when the books were written).

Inquisition was justified also. The bible says quite clearly you shall not suffer a witch to live. It says you must burn them. Death of some type is the punishment for heretics and blasphemers too.

Of course there is that bit about "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and "You can't remove the speck from your brothers eye before removing first the great rock from your own."

So if you want to be nice you can be nice, if you want to be a complete and total bastard you can do that too.

Which verses to follow and which to ignore? Well, it depends on what you want to do.

That is why we have everything from genocidal maniacs to your fun loving fish fry Catholics.

The thing is you can be a nice person that likes to grill meat in the back yard and drink a couple beers with your relatives without religion. But for a perfectly nice normal person who isn't some kind of sociopath to do something truly evil.... that takes religion.

See that is a great point. If you were going to write a book or something about this subject, that is what I would recommend you use as your thesis. I think I have a better understanding of what you are saying then when you simply said "all conflict today is caused by religion." I would still add that any kind of strong ideology combined with indoctrination could also someone to do something evil.

You're right on all points there. I should know better than to use a blanket statement. There are nearly always exceptions, so blanket statements will be silly 99% of time. There are lots of examples that prove any strong ideology with indoctrination and/or brainwashing works the same way.

Communism and Nazism are 2 good examples. In fact some people define them loosely as a religion, because people believe in them with the same kind of fanatical unquestioning devotion as a spiritual religion.

As a matter of fact I lump those people into the same category. The reasons being:

They have their own supreme texts
They bow to a leader in a way like worship
They are taught to never question
They are indoctrinated and brainwashed
They want to bend others to their will

Ancient Rome and pre-1945 Japan are 2 more examples. Fascism in general is another example (including racial purists).

Look at China's brutal treatment of Tibetans. It very much resembles a holy war like the crusades.

In fact if you are familiar with Richard Dawkins concept of memes being like a social version of genes, you can see how these ideologies are like the social version of viruses. They spread, replicate and are self defensive. So a recent point Professor Dawkins made is that these ideologies are to viruses as memes are to genes.

A very interesting subject for sure.

I heard once that the USA was/is actually working on a gay bomb - LOL

Yeah. I heard about the gay bomb thing about a year ago. Leno and Letterman had a field day with it.
Tim

what the hell is a gay bomb? LOL they pack a whole bunch of gays into a bomb set it off with gay dudes flying everywhere? hahaha

The original idea, so I remember (this was a while ago and my memory is a bit foggy), was to affect the genes of the enemy so they wouldn't have any desire to fight, or whatever. Sounds pretty preposterous to me. But don't forget, it was the military that came up with LSD, and you know where that got us.
Tim

Ironman, I was jus watching tonight's "Law and Order", and it really brought up what you were talking about. the "purists". This kid stoned his mother for adultery );iterally) , and instead of sending him a lawyer, the purists sent him a Christain "advisor". It really makes you think about how literalists think. Yes, it was TV, but?
Is it so different from what we think about extremist "any religions"?
Tim