The more religious countries are, the more violent they tend to be. And as I’ve said many times, Communism is just a religion that refuses the name.
I see no reason to believe that religion has tempered violence at all. It has most certainly encouraged it, massively so.
Disgusting Christian apologia.
Yes, you have said it so often that I now have a game of counting posts in threads of this nature to see how long it takes you to show up and post that.
What you have never done, of course, is set out a reasonable basis for making your claim. I happen to think that it is possible to make such an argument, (whether the argument ultimately succeeds or fails is a separate issue), but you have never once advanced an argument that would support your persistently unfounded assertion.
It is simply one of the mantras of your personal system of belief that allows you to blame religion for all things evil even when you have no evidence that it is true. It is one of your acts of faith.
However, your saying it, even repeatedly, does not make it so.
The violent tendencies that you seem intent on ascribing only to religion are present in ANY case where the need of the individual to establish an identity based on the group overrides whatever the group ACTUALLY believes.
If a Boy Scout troop defined their entire identity solely by being Boy Scouts, and along came someone who told that troop that perhaps “thrift” was not a cardinal virtue, they’d probably treat that person pretty unkindly, because their identity, as defined by their membership in the group (as distinct from their mutual adherence to the tenets of the group) would be threatened.
It has less to do with religion than it has to do with group identity. The sooner you realize that, the sooner your perspective will evolve.
IMHO Jesus taught that truth and seeking truth as the essence of the spiritual journey must be our priority, and all other concerns were a distant second. That means family or cultural tradition must be a distant second. We can see the reaction Jesus got by simply speaking the truth. Jesus could see that speaking and living the truth doesn’t always evoke love and gratitude, peace and prosperity. It will result in some anger resentment, confrontation, and sadly, violence. I was just talking to a friend about this. If a faith teaches turn the other cheek, yet always be truthful, and stand up for justice and equality, then a balance must be struck. I would say Gandhi had a decent grip on it with his non violent non cooperation technique.
So, I think these verses speak of Jesus teaching to put seeking and living the truth above all else and a recognition that it would not be easy and conflict would result and true disciples must be prepared to deal with it.
I have similar sentiments about this. I think what might be useful is to look at what qualities organized religion and Communism have in common. What aspects of both seem to promote the mind set that supports violence against others.
What it indicates to me is that it is some other aspects of the human condition other than god belief or a lack of god belief that can lead to those heinous acts.
Perhaps we might focus on what those aspects are and what we can do about them rather than trotting out the usual list “why religion is evil” nonsense.
Those arguments just don’t hold up.
I think that any philosophy of any sort that preaches that it is the sole correct worldview will breed virulent defenders of that ideology, be it political, religious, irrelegious, or any other variant on belief system.
In your post, you seem to be answering the question that I directed to the raindog: “How do you interpret Matthew 10:34?”
This is Matthew 10:34:
There is nothing here that suggests that “truth and seeking truth as the essence of the spiritual journey must be our priority, and all other concerns were a distant second.”
Also, on what basis did you conclude that Jesus was “simply speaking the truth”?
Thats whats scary about our current admin. but thats another thread. People have already touched on the “us vs. them” factor. It’s true. In many cases the ideology becomes just a tool and justification for people to seize possessions and power for themselves.
Unfortunately it isn’t always just defenders of an ideology that cause problems but the idea that it is their mission to spread the ideology to others by any means necessary. Then there’s the concept that anyone who doesn’t share in the ideology is some how less worthy of life and consideration.
The reason is simple: a belief in that you have absolute truth coupled with in-grouping. Throw in a heap of hostility to reason and the celebration of faith, and you have a very unstable thing. As has been pointed out, religion is hardly the only unstable thing, it just happens to be the most widespread engine. Violence is also not the only, or even the most common, result.
I think Sam Harris and Dawkins, whose positions are often lied about, have both argued pretty convincingly that it is the oft-inevitable absolutism of faith in general, and not specifically religion, that is the problem. No society has ever been worse off for being more reasonable and fact-based. Bringing up Stalin or Mao is not really much of an answer to the question of whether religious faith specifically is a bad thing: it’s a dodge mixed in with a slimy attempt at trying to pretend that all non-belief is some unified ideology, rather than simply an out-group with nothing necessarily in common at all.
It’s also worth noting, as a side note, that it’s a pretty hard sell to claim that the Judeo-Christian cannon is really a non-violent one. In the OT, the rule about not killing is almost immediately followed with commands about who and how to put people to death for all manner of trivial “offenses” and then not long after with commands to commit wanton genocide. The moral rules of things like non-murder are pretty clearly delineated to apply to fellow Jews ONLY.
In the NT, Jesus’ perspective makes the most sense in the context of the belief that the world was about to end, so none of this worldly stuff really matters (which is still a common objection by some fundamentalists to caring about things like the environment). Things like “turn the other cheek” are also, in the cultural context, a lot less peaceful than they might seem (being that all the behavior he describes is potentially rebellious and culturally insulting), and Jesus nowhere really renounces violence or indeed any of the OT’s violence and punishments. On the contrary, he claims to be here to break up families and bring a sword, and then there is the curious event where he commands his followers to arm themselves before the Romans come for him (resulting in the famous ear chopping). And of course then there is the ultimate violence of all: eternal suffering for no-belief, along with parables about burning and destroying those who don’t measure up.
You can’t realistically life one verse or even several verses out of context and get a big picture view of what Jesus taught. It’s in studying the other things attributed to him that we can get a clearer picture.
Check out truth in the gospels.
key verses IMO John 4:24
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
John 8:32
Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
John 18:47 “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
Luke 18: 29"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”
Luke 17: 20Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Looking at Jesus interaction with others is also an indication.
He told one man “Let the dead bury the dead and follow me”
another, “sell all you have and give it to the poor then come and follow me.”
Taking it as a whole I think an overview about his teachings emerge which helps us interpret the verse you mentioned.
This is true, and is the reason why I am concerned about religious groups of any flavor. That is, there is an abundance of hatred for religion by some of the most evangelical atheists. If there was an organized structure to atheism similar to churches and synagogues, it would be a matter of time before a cell of extremists started bombing churches and such. At least that’s the impression I get from some of the seething hatred I detect.
So it isn’t so much “We are right and have to let the world know,” it’s that “they are wrong, and we have to let the world know.”
Of the major religions, I see them all as teaching a message of peace, yet each of them have cells of extremists who want to lash out at the different preachers of peace, just because they are different. Why can’t people live and let live?
Agree on all counts.
Exactly.
I wish I had a better answer than ‘widespread mental impairment’. But that’s the conclusion I keep coming to.
If you are logic-challenged or if you actually have a disorder that prevents you from thinking clearly, then you may buy into the hate philosophies. However, anyone capable of examining them critically sees quite rapidly how truly flawed they are and rejects them.
You guys are so cute with your scare tactics and smears!
My favorite is when believers like Dinesh D’Souza, blithely write that atheists are heartless, souless, hopeless fools with nothing to say to comfort the grieving and no way to deal with death… and then point to people who get pissed off with such insults as examples of their point.
http://newsbloggers.aol.com/2007/04/20/unbelief-as-a-form-of-payback/
It’s like going around punching people in the face, and then reacting in mock disbelief when someone calls you a jerk for doing so. Charming stuff.
But somehow, even us “militant” atheists somehow manage to restrain ourselves from setting people on fire as a result, or really doing much of anything to believers at all ever aside from criticizing the things the claim.
The bible can be interpreted in many ways to be sure. Often, however, they are taken completely out of context. (in which case the bible can be construed to mean almost anything)
Which is exactly what you did.
Here is the whole 10th chapter of Matthew:
In this account, Jesus is speaking to his disciples and giving them some indication as what they could expect in the near future. Jesus was approaching the end of his earthly life, and was preparing the disciples for the life they would experience after his death. The disciples were to be evangelizers; they were to spread the word about the Christ to ‘The House of Israel.’ (verses 5-15) However, they would encounter resistance, both from society at large, and even from fellow Jews. (verses 17-20) This resistance would extend even to families—preaching about the Christ would divide families and Jews who rejected the claim that Jesus was the Messiah would ‘deliver up’ family members as apostates or heretics. (verses 21-23) He noted that even Jesus himself was to endure (as he had already, and more was to come) persecution. (verses 24-25) he encouraged them however, and reassured them that they weren’t alone—that Jehovah God ‘had their back’ and that the one they should fear or revere was God—not men–for while they may lose their lives at the hand of men, only God could permanently terminate their lives. Only God had[has] the ability to end a life permanently, and only God could resurect them. He also let them know that they had to take a stand—that those who denied God (for fear of men) would be denied by God later; conversely those who had the courage to stand by God in the sight of men could expect God’s support later. (verses 26-33)
Then we get to your cite: (verses 34-36) Jesus was making clear that following him was divisive—that many would not simply reject him but be passionate about it. Families would be divided—divided between those who saw Jesus saw seditionist and a madman, and those that saw him as the promised Messiah. Jesus was being blunt—these divisions weren’t simply in the courtrooms, synagogues, city streets, and places that people congregated, but would be in homes, in families. He went on to say that loyalty to him didn’t end in the streets—that loyalty to him meant that a person would have to choose him over a mother, father, son or daughter.** (verse 37-39)** (which you did not cite)
This account, in it’s full rendering and context, doesn’t say in the slightest that Jesus was advocating violence. rather, he making clear that
At any rate, IMO, you pulled this entirely out of context and completely misapplied the text to make a point that doesn’t exist.
Yeah, because you guys are soooo balanced when you speak of religion as the cause of all wars when anyone with a scrap of education in international affairs knows that’s not even close to true.
This is a good example of what I was talking about in regards to the “ah, fuck it, it’ll all be over soon anyway, don’t worry too much about anything other than loyalty to me” stuff. It’s hard to read too much of lasting principle for a whole life or long existing society into what Jesus says about earthly conduct given that he didn’t seem to forsee the world as we know it existing much longer. His ideas seem to be in the context of a prediction that didn’t come to pass.
So are you ever going to get around to, like, backing up your bold claims with some, like, arguments? Or cites?
For instance, can you cite where I’ve claiming that religion is “the cause of all wars”? In fact, try reading my first post again: how exactly are you getting “religion is the cause of all wars” out of something that seems to speak directly against that idea?
Apos, if you get to talk about “you guys” when you respond to a single poster, then I figure it is fair for respondents to you to talk about “you guys,” as well.
These conversations tend to be pretty sloppy, to begin with, but if the general tone is one of innuendo and generalization, it hardly works to suddenly call “Cite?” in the midst of it.
Let’s see your citation that anyone in this thread is guilty of
Otherwise, just stick to the overall lack of precision and stop trying to pretend that your overgeneralizations are more appropriate than their overgeneralizations.
Give me a break. QG specifically responded TO ME, including me in “you guys.” As far as I can tell, the ONLY person here who thinks religion is the cause of all wars is DT, and that’s only because he sloppily True Scotsmans everything he can into the definition of “religion.”
Are you posting just to be seen disagreeing with me, or are you really here to defend this?
Your point might some sense if I had actually referred or directed those comments to anyone in the thread, like QG did. Read my comments and QG’s again, and see if your rubber/glue accusation really makes much sense at all. It doesn’t. The only time I used “you guys” was in response to Charger: an off the cuff remark directed at a specific remark he/she really DID make that didn’t really directly reference more than just him and the person I went on to talk about. QM’s response, however, did, very directly, include me.
So you begin the “you guys” round of unqualified generalization to Charger, but you want to take umbrage when it comes back to you. OK.
I posted because I see this thread spiraling down the rat hole into more needless acrimony.
I doubt that I would defend four sentences in this thread beginning with post #3, but if I have to read it, I want everyone to place nice. With luck, Quiddity Glomfuster will read our exchange and pull back from making really wide brush indefensible claims in the second person, as well, but you were the one who caught my eye by launching both the first second person swipe and then the first retaliatory “Cite?”.