Are some religions easier to weaponize than others? It seems the “religion of peace”, Islam, is more easily weaponized than other religions. What about Hindu… should we worry that just because nobody has thought to turn them militant over the West’s literal eating of their sacred cows, that that won’t happen someday? Buddhists seem rather peaceful, until one of the monks self-immolates to protest war. Is it a small leap from that to suicide bomber?
What are the most and least weaponizable religions, and why?
Jainism would be one of the most difficult religions to weaponize. The more fundamental and fanatical you get the more peaceful you become, including taking great care in order not to harm insects.
Edit - Yes, the only reason I’ve ever heard of this is because I read Sam Harris. So sue me.
Having read the Gospels, I would say Christianity. Having read history, I would have to disagree with myself :rolleyes:
The baha’i faith is at least among the least weaponized religions. I think this conclusion is born up by their history (and present, really) of persecution and passive resistance, as well as by their doctrine of unity. From wikipedia:
I would also have to second Jainism as being up there. Baha’i ranks high in the understanding and acceptance of all religions. Jainism may not necessary be high in the acceptance of other religions scale–but they don’t eat root vegetables because of the violence done to the plant, for goodness sake. The idea of an absolute truth, one of the tenets of their ethical code, does not necessarily lend itself to understanding other viewpoints.
If your only knowledge of Judaism was from the Old Testament, I think you’d conclude that it was the most violent modern relgion. Most of the stories in it involve warfare, killing groups of people on God’s says so is regarded a virtue, the penalty of breaking many of the laws is death and multiple people are punished for showing mercy to people against God’s will.
Of course history hasn’t born this out, if for no other reason then in most of modern times the Jews haven’t really been in a position to do violence to anyone. Meanwhile members of the more overtly pacifist religions of Christianity and Buddhism have happily engaged in serial warfare both with thier co-religionists and infidels. I think that suggests that there really isn’t much predictive value in deciding weather a people are going to be prone to violence based on their religious texts. There are exceptions (Quakers spring to mind), but by and large people usually decide they want to fight and then twist their religion to justify it rather then the other way around.
I suspect, to be a really dangerous weapon, a religion has to have the pretty much unconditional support of a state or state-like organization (such as the medieval papacy). You’re a lot less limited in what you can do in the name of your religion once you have access to laws, large amounts of money, and other resources that states can provide.
I think you also have to have the idea in your religion that it is very desirable to convert non-believers to your religion. Most forms of Hinduism don’t have this idea- quite the opposite, actually. Hindus get upset about non-Hindus forcing or tricking Hindus into eating beef (see: Sepoy Rebellion for an example), but they don’t tend to try to stop non-Hindus in other countries from eating beef. Some Islamic terrorists, on the other hand, do seem to have a problem with people in non-Muslim countries living by rules other than theirs.
I would say that a history of persecution and a tradition of venerating martyrs for the faith also helps. Christianity and Islam definitely have this characteristic, Judaism somewhat but much less so.
There are numerous Hindu militant groups in India and surrounding areas. My understanding is their main goals are the restoration of “Greater India” by regaining control of independant countries that were once part of India and a program of politically favoring Hinduism over other area religions like Islam, Buddhism, Christianity, Sikhism, and Jainism and turning Hindu religious edicts into secular law.
I think evangelism is a key factor. In non-evangelical religions, people of other religions have a legitimate place in the world. For example, in Hinduism it doesn’t really matter if you arn’t Hindu- maybe you will be next time around.
In evangelical religions, those people and their institutions are invalid.
I think that’s important for weaponizing a religion against outsiders; it’s not that important for turning a religion against it’s own followers. I do think it’s significant that Christianity and Islam are both very evangelical ( as is Communism, which I consider religion or a close relative ), and have been very violent towards outsiders, not just to their own.
That’s a slippery slope to being out of context. We should be focusing on people that fight for their religion, not because of it. We’re talking about militarizing a religion, not militarizing religious followers. It doesn’t count if I, a christian, go to war unless I put the cross on my shield (or tank).
Fair enough, replace “prone to violence” in my orginal post to “prone to religious violence” and the point still holds (though maybe only in the Christian case, I don’t know enough Asian history to say whether it still holds for Buddhist countries).
|The country is a mix of 70% Hindu and 20% Buddhist religions (Buddha was born in Lumbini in the south), 4% Muslims who are clustered around the border with India, plus a few more obscure sects. In the Kathmandu valley a synthesis of Hinduism and Buddhism is practiced by the Newars, while in the eastern and western hills, the oldest religious form, Shamanism, still survives. |
A gross example of cherry picking.
I did not exactly understand IntelSoldier’s post, reviewing it I’m still a bit confused, but it made me think of Elsie
As far as I am concerned, anybody who fights for ‘religious reasons’ should be summarily executed - which puts George W Bush on the spot - while I can understand that his script writers used the word Crusade someone with the IQ of a POTUS should have been able to skip such inflamatory words.
That’s a very good observation. Tacit approval. We saw it in the United States at the turn of the century with the KKK. I think pictures of the parades in Washington DC spoke volumes.
When a religion is used as a weapon we are really talking about political abuse of power. It doesn’t matter if a belief in God or Karl Marx is used as the medium. It all comes down to the most efficient way to corrupt public opinion.
Since this thread specifically addresses religion as a medium I would add that competition is important in the softening of the power base. Martin Luther nailed it when he challenged the Catholic Church as the final authority in public matters. Once that monopoly was broken then the global reach was seriously reduced.
What has been addressed before regarding Islam is the relatively flat hierarchy involved. The ability to rise up as a leader is independent of other leaders. Power can be established without codification. Combine this with personal wealth and it is possible to have a personal army with very dedicated soldiers. That goes back to Anne Neville’s point that state support is a big part of this. If you look at the Mid East, it’s got a long history of fiefdoms that exist like roving states within a state.
