It's your, stupid git and I wouldn't trust you to guide your hand to scratch your ass.Do you're own work. I'm not your informational sherpa.
As usual, you either misunderstand or misrepresent.
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It's your, stupid git and I wouldn't trust you to guide your hand to scratch your ass.Do you're own work. I'm not your informational sherpa.
People kill people with guns.Funny how similar this sounds to the gun safety argument “guns don’t kill people - people do.”
Nah, guns kill people.
... or as the "New and Improved" Good Book reimagines the Golden Rule: "I'm better than you because _________".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.
People kill people and guns make it so much easier to do that.People kill people with guns.
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 ?
Beautifully illustrated my point. And yet you missed it yourself.People kill people with guns.
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.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.
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.
Guns are controlled. There's law after law after law to get a gun, law after law after law stating what is illegal to do with a gun, etc.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.
Part of the problem here, though, is that conflicts tend to have lots of causes.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.
I generally agree with this. To me, doing things in the name of God and doing things for God are usually quite different. As in, "here's my excuse for doing what I did" verses "here's why I felt I had to help."Not really...when you look at the stories of war and violence all over the world, religion is rarely a part of it, even nominally. Genghis Khan, Qin Shi Huang Di, Alexander the Great, the Romans, the Aztecs, and countless others waged war and violence, with hardly any reference to religion at all.
I think a lot of people mistake how Christianity functioned during the period of European colonialism as the definition of "organized religion." But greed is always the leading factor. Religion, if it's present at all, only serves to try to legitimate things.
How often is religion used to gain money and power?Funny how many people really, really, really want to believe this.
It's absolutely false, btw. The thing that has been responsible for more pain and suffering to humanity than all others is greed for land, resources, money and power.
Maybe we should just ignore zen...And what I'm saying is that the ordinance should include Christianity if it's going to include others. I doubt that it does and Christian holidays , parades and observances aren't scrutinized at all. See "War on Christmas."
But, a good guy with a gun always stops the bad guy with a gun.People kill people and guns make it so much easier to do that.
Thank you Tar, this is what I had in mind and wanted from this thread, actual discussion about the impact of religion on the world.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.
Here you go: Politics - Mass Shooting & Gun Violence - FSU ShooterPeople kill people with guns.