Politics is the problem. Religion is not!

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I bet most, if not all the hideous crimes committed by pro-religious groupings are actually more political than religious, if not 100 % political. Imagine we did away with all religious thinking and everybody were true atheists, not agnostics but atheists... the very same rate of crimes and war will still be found in this world.

Jesus taught peace and loving thy neighbor, and in this very name and in this very teaching of peace and loving thy neighbor, the Church has ordered the genocide of the non-christians and mass-burnings at the stake.

This ought to have an explanation outside religion! It can only be explained with politics, not religion!

If I say to you: "Do not murder!" and you go out and murder in that very saying, can you blame me for murder? Of course not, I told you to not murder! You do it anyway, that's YOUR problem. Not mine.

Yet this is exactly what happens in the name of Christianity! I don't know enough about Judaism or Islam to tell whether they teach about murdering some people, but the Quran is said to justify murder in some cases, but I know little about it. But I do know that Jesus taught non-murder, yet some Christians kill in the name of Jesus!

That's a tiny bit weird isn't it?

Last edited by thinkinginpictures on 04 Dec 2017, 2:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Politics, religion and philosophy are often intertwined even to the point of being indistinguishable...and yes, with the bottom line being the matter of one or more persons having political authority and power over one or more others whether or not religion is specifically involved.

The religious have been the vast majority of us forever, --- and to try to shift the blame for war and conflict from the religious majority to the minority politic side, whose majority also claim religious affiliation, --- is quite a cop out.

Have you not seen the data that shows that the less religious a country is, the less violent it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxoxPapPxXk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdtwTeBPYQA

Regards
DL

The notion that religion and politics are two separate things is a recent one.

It took 3000 years of history before any great thinker ever even momentarily toyed with the idea that they might be thought of separately. That thinker was (interestingly enough) Christ who once said "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and render unto God what is God's".

Even then the idea didn't "take" even among the later followers of Christ. Christendom continued to merge politics and religion for more than 15 centuries after that.

In China the emperors ruled by "the mandate of Heaven", and the Emporers of Japan (like the Pharaohs of Bronze Age Egypt) were considered to BE gods incarnate themselves. And likewise the kings of Christian Medeavel Europe were assumed to rule "by divine right".

Then came the Protestant Reformation in the 15 and 16 hundreds. Wars of religion within Christendom tore up western europe. Finnally when the dust settled in the 1700's both Protestants and Catholics faced the fact that they had to tolerate the other. And the age of Reason began. Relgious tolerance became an ideal.

And what also began in the 18th century west was the notion of Democracy. They got sick of that "Divine Right of Kings" jive and began to...behead kings.

Real secular politics began. Constitutions were written protecting religious freedom. Political ideologies became a thing. And gradually politics and religion became thought of as being separate realms.

But there were many backward glances to when the state and god were the same, and backward glances continue in religion infused politics until this day.

But you're right. If religion didn't exist folks would find something else to fight over.
In the far east "wars of religion" were virtually unheard of until the 19th century when western influence sank in. But they still managed to have wars in East Asia for thousands of years prior to large scale contact with the West.

The reason for the lack of wars of religion in the far east is largely because the types of religions that they have in east asia are not mutually exclusive (you can be a Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucianist, all at the same time). In contrast if you convert to Islam, or to Christianity, you cant keep on worshipping the Gods of Mt. Olympus at the same time. The Abrahamic religions are all us-against-them. And Eastern religions (like Hinduism and Buddhism) don't get militant unless they get put on the defensive by...the Abrahamic religions like Islam and or Christianity.

Problems are the problem.

Alluha akbar

Get is great for sure. Great garbage and poor morality.

Regards
DL