Religion in the USA

finesse said:
You just might note that I listed religion as a belief system and not the sole one.

I will say that monotheism had a horrifying affect on the interactions of different peoples and races. Nothing quite like knowing you have a special connection with the only God to cultivate an attitude of superiority over the benighted, the scoffers and the evil.
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... or as the "New and Improved" Good Book reimagines the Golden Rule: "I'm better than you because _________".
 
heelinhell said:
As you know, I'm one of those who really ,really, really believes this. My question to you is how much of what you find responsible has been Inextricably tied to religion throughout history ?
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I mean, I think about this a lot. And my survey courses cover the whole world, and all of history (they're very very general). And I just think that time after time after time, the more I look at something negative or violent, the less religion seems to have anything to do with it. It's always about money, sex, land, and power. And religion is then used to justify those actions.

There are some sociopaths who I think are genuinely driven by religious or ideological behavior (all the ascetics in world history, possibly). But I just think that most of the time it's not. Aztec human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli were ways of showing dominance over conquered tribes, as was the requirement the Romans made to offer a pinch of incense to the genius of the Roman emperor.

I mean, I know religion has a very dark, evil side, and it has been used for ill ends ever since the agricultural revolution. I just think we're actually *not* dealing with the source of human problems if we make religion the boogyman. Religion comes from us, it is us, and most cultures don't even have a separate word for it. It's neither good nor bad, just a mixture of both, and it's not the root of the problem IMO.
 
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ZenMode said:
People kill people with guns.
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Beautifully illustrated my point. And yet you missed it yourself.

More people die because of widespread citizen gun ownership than if guns were controlled. That’s a fact. Analogously, the argument is that more harm is done because of organized religion than if they didn’t exist.
 
Pope John Paul sent Mother Teresa on an expedition to the United States, to check the pulse of Americans to see how religious they were. Mother Teresa was directed to go to the major cities in the United States, and report back to the Vatican on a regular basis with information on what she found out.

Her first stop was New York City, and after a couple of days she telephoned the Vatican and said: “Hello your Eminence, this is Mother Teresa and I’m glad to report that everyone here in New York City seems to be very religious and reverent and they apparently attend church regularly.”

A couple of more days go by and the phone rings at the Vatican and its Mother Teresa: “ good evening your Eminence, this is Mother Teresa and I’m happy to report that I’m in Philadelphia now and just like in New York, Everyone seems to be very religious and attends Mass regularly.”

A few more days, go by and mother Teresa calls the Vatican from Chicago, and makes a similar report: “ good morning your Eminence, this is mother Teresa and I’m happy to report from Chicago that the people here attend mass as they should and they seem very religious and reverent.”

Then A few more days go by but strangely, there’s no phone call at the Vatican. A couple of weeks go by… Still no phone call and pope John Paul is starting to worry. Another week goes by and the Pope is really starting to worry and is considering sending out a mission to locate mother Teresa.

Then, finally, after a couple of more anxious days, waiting, the phone finally rings at the Vatican:

“Hey Jackie baby! It’s me Terri! I’m in L.A.!”
 
TarSpiel said:
I mean, I think about this a lot. And my survey courses cover the whole world, and all of history (they're very very general). And I just think that time after time after time, the more I look at something negative or violent, the less religion seems to have anything to do with it. It's always about money, sex, land, and power. And religion is then used to justify those actions.

There are some sociopaths who I think are genuinely driven by religious or ideological behavior (all the ascetics in world history, possibly). But I just think that most of the time it's not. Aztec human sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli were ways of showing dominance over conquered tribes, as was the requirement the Romans made to offer a pinch of incense to the genius of the Roman emperor.

I mean, I know religion has a very dark, evil side, and it has been used for ill ends ever since the agricultural revolution. I just think we're actually *not* dealing with the source of human problems if we make religion the boogyman. Religion comes from us, it is us, and most cultures don't even have a separate word for it. It's neither good nor bad, just a mixture of both, and it's not the root of the problem IMO.
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Maybe in part that's because our historians tend to be materialists, and are professionally oriented toward viewing issues in terms of money, land, etc. I mean, I don't know and I'm not opining either way, but it's worth considering that there are a lot of historians who see culture in general as mostly just decoration.

There is undoubtedly truth to what you say. The question is how broad. I think you're saying that *most* conflicts aren't really religious in nature, allowing for some that are. I think everyone acknowledges that some apparently religious conflicts were actually secular in nature. So we're talking about degrees. I have no insight there.
 
superrific said:
I think you're saying that *most* conflicts aren't really religious in nature, allowing for some that are. I think everyone acknowledges that some apparently religious conflicts were actually secular in nature. So we're talking about degrees. I have no insight there.
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Maybe some are, but to be honest I can't really think of any. The crusades weren't...well, I guess the "People's Crusade" probably was. So there's one. But it's actually hard for me to think of specific conflicts that were rooted in religion. Northern Ireland? No way. All about land and power. Tibet? No again, land and power again.

I actually tried to study the roots of violent conflict with respect to Australian aborigines, who have the oldest continual culture on the planet. I didn't make much headway, because there's significant scholarly disagreement. It does seem that there was conflict between tribes, mostly over 1) women, 2) land use, and 3) I forgot. But one and two were the main ones.

So they had wars and battles and raids, but they were highly structured and moderated, and few people ever died from them. So I thought that was interesting, though I still have a lot to learn about it. Also, and sort of related, the tribes in my area (California) almost never made war on each other, because resources were/are abundant.
 
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