While people like to tout the wars and conflicts that religion has supposedly created, the fact is that religion didn't do those things. Greed did.

Greed uses religion as an excuse, the same way Greed uses nationalism, racism, and all the other excuses for war Man dredges up. If Religion weren't around, Man would come up with another excuse. We're human, we like to kill, we like to steal, we want what our neighbor's got, so we're gonna get it. Religion is a front.

Do you actually think the Crusaders were thinking pious thoughts as they slaughtered the infidel? No, they were thinking of the power and glory they would have. The Saracens weren't defending the Holy Land, they were defending the right to control the flow of commerce through the Holy Land.

The massacre of the Cathars by the Catholics, wasn't because God wanted it, it was because the Cathars were undermining the church's revenues. If it wasn't the church ordering the killing, it would of been a French king.

WW1 & 2 weren't about religion or democracy so much as it was a fight for power and resources.

Probably the only brutalities committed solely in the name of religion was the Inquisition and Co. Although there were definitely political reasons to that too.

But, all those things would have happened anyway. People die in horrific manners all the time. Get used to it. Blaming the tragic deaths on religion isn't going to change the fact that those people were going to die anyway, whether from religion or from whatever other war was going on.

Find something better to ridicule religion for, like omnipotent, omnibenevolent Gods, or praying, or lighting incense and giving sacrifices.

nicely put

I agree 100%

quote:Originally posted by CaffeineJunkie:

nicely put

I agree 100%

I agree.

I disagree, because religion makes the people that way in the first place. If you understand this post taken from another thread written in then you will understand why I disagree. I am sorry for those who have already read the post, but I can't stress it enough.

__________________________________________

Religions praise perfectionalism and because trying to be perfect/find perfect place under religion, failure becomes inevitably and often. Fear of failure then leads to unrelenting anxiety, only fleetingly relieve by occasional feelings of accomplishment and success.

But the thing is every failure leads to self-anger/hatred for being weak and to anger and rage towards "THOSE" we think make us feel that way. But because parents and cultures and society demand that we suppress these feelings as being socially unaccpetable. Furthermore, so painful are they that the mind goes till further and represses them, and thus prevents them from ever rising into awareness.

The repression leads to depression, which is a feeling of hopelessness, helplessness and weakness. This is occasionally relieve by anger, which is welcomed for its feeling of power and strength. Over the long term depression can cause changes in the brains chemistry. Then regardless of later achievements and successes, deep down there is still a feeling of worthlessness often there for the remainder of ones life. Even drugs or therapy may not relieve this feeling.

However since repression/expression is a polar pair, what is repressed must be expressed. The mind does this in a way that concels what is repressed. Self hatred is converted into the hatred of the controllers. This is where the ego is at it's most supreme and thinks "I will get them before they get me" Or the self hatred is converted into illness thereby earning ones own grief and sadness of others which then is converted into turning back to religion, who actually got them to the state they were in, in the first place.

Sort of see the cycle do you? The last thing I want to do is offend anyone, but that is what religions do to people.

People are allowed to believe whatever they want to believe. Some choose to put blind faith into what they believe instead of actually asking questions and seeking.

There is no problem with that at all if the person is happy.

When you realise that objective reality (observed by another) is exactly the same as subjective reality (observed in your head) since all external observers are only images in your mind. Objective reality becomes nothing but an appearance or image in your mind, just as subjective reality.

The world in your mind is the only world that you can perceive directly. All bodies and other objects in this world are nothing but images in your mind.

Therefore when you realise they both the same then there is no need for conflict. Everyone needs to go on their own journey for the truth, those who are happy finding the truth by putting blind faith and not seeking the answers themselves then that is ok too. THERE is not right or wrong answer!

You see Time and Space is an illusion.

All concepts that we have are branched off from those two main concepts.

Space makes us feel separate, and in turn makes us feel like an individual. Hence the ego is born (false self) and more concepts are born from fear/desire and what the ego wants. When you realise the feelings you are feeling aren't yours and that all these feelings are born from the ego, you start to wonder, I shouldn't be feeling this because the ego is only an image in your mind. Then you are able to disidentify with your ego, so you are free!

The first law of the ego, is there there is ALWAYS someone to blame. There is no “THEY”. “They” is what you have made up in your head. Since the ego is nothing but a concept, other concepts can appear to be threats to it including some concepts about the ego itself. Some of these conflict with the ego's self-esteem, such as concepts of being wrong, weak, defective, unattractive or guilty. The ego reacts to any of these threats by attacking, and thereby tends to see other seeming individuals or made up entity's as guilty, enemies or victimizers.

You see the ego always sees itself as the victim, never as the victimizer, and thus is able to justify virtually any action in defence of itself. The ego finds it very easy to ally itself with other "Concepts" because it finds strength in concepts. Since the concept of "I" requires the concept of it's polar opposite the non-"I" the "I" see's everything being into divided pairs. The concept of right necessarily requires the concept of wrong, good requires evil, God requires Satan, guilty requires innocence, light requires darkness, health requires illness, rich requires poor, knowledge requires ignorance etc. All these are merely concepts that are formed by drawing conceptual boundaries between the opposites in an inseparable pair of concepts. These boundaries are purely arbitrary and can be moved as the occasion demands. THERE IS NO GOOD/EVIL GOD/SATAN they are all concepts stemmed from the ego and made up in your mind!!!!

The ego does not exist. It is nothing but a presumption--the presumption that if thinking experiencing, or doing occurs there must be an entity that thinks experiences, or does. It is the identification of nonlocal consciousness with a thought in the mind. As a result of this identification, the experience of freedom that is really a property of the quantum self becomes limited and is falsely attributed to the ego, resulting in the assumption that the "I" entity has free will instead of being a completely conditioned product of repeated experiences.

The faith of violent clashes between religions have ended in executions massacres and wars for many many centries.

What is weird is religions often preach love without knowing what love is. Many fundamentailists interpret their god's love for them to be inseparable from its hatred for others. So they often create enemies on whom to displace their feelings of self-hatred, self fear, and self anger. Their (unrecognised) self hatred can be so unbearable that they try to compensate by believing that they are god's favoured few, and in the name of this god, endeavor to eliminate a competing religion by trying to convert, demonise or kill its adherents. Their fear of another religion or reaching can be even greater than their fear of death.

So in religion, mankind creates gods in its own images, and each religion then justifies its actions by claiming it speaks for its god. The more vengeful and punitive is the god, the more vengeful and punnitive are the people who believe in it. There for many adherents to Christianity are described as god fearing, and not god loving.

___________________________________________

In World war 2, Christians even got behind Germany in the killing of Jews. Would you like more examples for me to elaborate on?

See how the far religion tries to separate people. This basis right there is why there is so much conflict, and war. So yes in the end religion does create all those things! Hopefully get what I am talking about and can see my point of view?

P.s There is nothing wrong with lighting Incense. http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif) haha





[This message has been edited by realitycourse (edited 05-25-2006).]

Wow, crazed_hamster. Nice post.

Who says religion isn't the main cause and the rest is just secondary? Proof is hard to find in this thread.

People blame religion, notice "People blame religion" the real culpirate is in that sentence "people".

I have never heard of a Bible walking into a Gay bar and starting a fire.

Lets say we took away all religions in a flash, boom, they are all gone, now we will fight about our differences in Nationality.

Nationality BEGONE. Ok its gone, now we the people, members of this one nation will fight about differences in power and authority...POWER BEGONE, ALL ARE EQUAL NOW IN POWER...

Ok thanks, now we will fight about our differences in looks, color, height...DIFFERENCES IN LOOKS BEGONE!

Alright, hey, you look like me, I look like you, we're all the same in wealth and power and influence...Whats that smell? You farted? ON MY HEAD? Now we will fight about differences in ACTIONS and PERCEPTIONS...Take that away and we are no longer Humans, just senseless robots.

Domo Arigato.

Blaming religion is an excuse, blame yourselves, oh you wonderful people, blame your differences which you should cherish, for thou art not robotethz or without sense.

Or shall we blame the gun and not the one who pulls the trigger? Perhaps that nasty bullet is the true evil doer. Or the words we are able to speak and write. Nay, it is the Humans who have all the options who are to blame, and how they use all the possibilities they have within this oh so vast and encompassing Reality of ours.

Absolutely religion is a major cause of war.

The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Balkens, Northern Ireland and Great Britain, the Middle East, etc.

[This message has been edited by bonkers (edited 05-25-2006).]

Religions don't do the fighting people do, read my post here!

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

Religions don't do the fighting people do, read my post here!

Yeah, because of religion. lol.

Religion gets people who would not do horrible thing to do those horrible things, but it is true that some people would do horrible things anyways. Regardless, religion is bad. Any unsubstantiated belief is bad. You know like the belief that you will go straight to paradise for martyring yourself. People would not be blowing themselves up without that belief.



[This message has been edited by Real.PUA (edited 05-25-2006).]

Religion is wonderful to convince people to do horrible things from the position of a leader.

It easier for an underlying soldier to do bad things if they think they are going to heaven because of it.

But It just a vessel, but that doesnt mean the vessel can be fixed or removed.

No not "because" of religion, but "because" of people and their motivation and how they use what they have and what they invent. I can kill with a fork, the fork can't be blamed, it can be used for good or bad, I used it, I am responsible. Killing is because of Guns? No, it is the people who use guns to kill. Religion and Ideas are the cause of war? No, the people who use them to cause war, are the cause of war, the ideas can be used in other ways too, just like a fork.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

No not "because" of religion, but "because" of people and their motivation and how they use what they have and what they invent. I can kill with a fork, the fork can't be blamed, it can be used for good or bad, I used it, I am responsible. Killing is because of Guns? No, it is the people who use guns to kill. Religion and Ideas are the cause of war? No, the people who use them to cause war, are the cause of war, the ideas can be used in other ways too, just like a fork.

You compare religion to forks and guns because those can kill when used by people. There are other things that can kill when used by people like nuclear weapons and armies. In the sense "It can be used to kill" forks and nuclear bombs are on the same spectrum. Where is religion on this spectrum? I think history shows most religion is closer to nuclear bombs than it is to forks.

And how does the world control nuclear weapons? It doesnt let greedy people (and dumb people you don't see to many red necks with nukes expert maybe Gorge W Bush) have them.

Surgeon General's Warning for Religion: Use Religion Responsibly.

quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

Surgeon General's Warning for Religion: Use Religion Responsibly.

haha

lets take away religions tax exempt status.

Abrahim wrote:

___________________________________________

People blame religion, notice "People blame religion" the real culpirate is in that sentence "people".

___________________________________________

Yes people are of a higher logical type than religion. However religion is the excuse however because it works on the ego's two main concepts of fear/desire.



crazed_hamster wrote:

____________________________________________

While people like to tout the wars and conflicts that religion has supposedly created, the fact is that religion didn't do those things. Greed did.

__________________________________________

Hence greed, stems from desire... and from this example cannot be above religion.

Anything that can control the ego’s fear or desire can cause the same problem. But religion does that the best. Hence the reason why I blame it for all the wars that it has created.

Remember Christianity and the Military were amongst the first to organisations to learn how to brainwash and control people. Same techniques, of tearing down the ego and then rebuilding it again through their own beliefs and control them through fear and desire.

Please correct me if I am wrong, it wouldn't surprise me though if I am, haven't slept for a couple of days. Woohoo and now its almost friday lunchtime. I got the whole weekend in front of me.

REMEMBER THIS::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

__________________________________________

YOU ARE WHAT YOU THINK!!!

AND THAT SCARES YOU!!!!

BECAUSE YOUR NOTHING!!!!!!

__________________________________________



Sleep deprivation, lack of food I would be the perfect target for brainwashing right now..haha Off topic, but hopefully that concluded the debate.

Talking about brainwashing and control see how the following statement tries to create that on a smaller scale.

You are what you think!!! (uses the ego)

And that scares you!!! (creates fear)

Because your nothing!!!

(Ego becomes the victim, which is only an image in your head and will keep trying to be better to prove it wrong, but when it fails, self hatred and repression sink in and the cycle starts again.)

Ok now I think this shit has got to my head and am going delusional. Anyone else come up with any examples???

And for the person who is going to say…….

YOU FUCKING TRIPPER!!!!! (attacks the ego)

GO TO SLEEP!!!!!! (Offers a solution) haha just like religion does with hope!!!!!!!

YOU DELUSIONAL FUCK!!!!!! (creates fear that I am going to stay delusional) Sort of like religion if you don’t do what they say, you wont go to “Heaven”

Well you don't need to say it http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/smile.gif).





[This message has been edited by realitycourse (edited 05-26-2006).]

lol I found the place where you originally mentioned your idea for this topic before you made it! it was when you said

"

I agree with this. I think its stupid when people blame fighting on religion. Obviously, there HAVE been many wars, battles, sufferings, etc. due to religion. But if not religion, there would have been another motivation. We're given to conflict. That people want to stop fighting, wars, suffering, is idealistic, but thoroughly futile. What's more intelligent would be to profit off of it."

To my post in one of my topics which said:

" quote:Originally posted by Abrahim:

I don't think that one can really blame religion for the actions of people. For Example I've never heard of a Bible getting up and shooting people in a gay club. If all religions were stripped from the world, people would still find things to fight and kill about, differences, likenesses, anything. If we were all given equal power and land in the world and no religion we would still disagree about things since we still have opinion available, people witnessing things differently and more. If all differences in how we look were taken away, our power and land was equal, all religion was taken away, then we would fight on our individual actions that one might do and another might witness and disagree with or may get directly injured by. If all religions, all differences in rank and power in image, and differences in individual action was taken away we would no longer be humans.

Basically, as long as we are human, some of us will always fight. Religion or no religion, it is not responsible for people dying or killing. Those who die and kill for their ideas are often not following the religion they claim to be following, if they were, they would not kill or die for the ideas in the religion as often the religion says not to. Religion itself can do nothing, nor can differences in color, power, size, rank. All those things by themselves are non factors until used as an excuse by us, the humans, to fight with another.

[This message has been edited by Abrahim (edited 05-28-2006).]

I agree with Abrahim here.

Religion and war come from the same place.

Religion is an extension of culture.

War is usually a clash of cultures.

It is part of human nature.

Humans tend to have religions.

Humans tend to have wars.

Cultural differences make it easy

to see THEM as different than US,

and a threat to OUR way of life.

Religion has been used as a higher

justification, but the real causes

are much more down to earth.

Even animals make war.

Exclusivist Religions breed Exclusivism, Exclusivism breeds spite, spite breeds malice, malice breeds war. Slippery Slope FTW!

You can pin everything bad done in the name of religion to human nature, but what stops other people from pinning everything good done in the name of religion to human nature?

Fundokiller wrote:

___________________________________________

Exclusivist Religions breed Exclusivism, Exclusivism breeds spite, spite breeds malice, malice breeds war. Slippery Slope FTW!

You can pin everything bad done in the name of religion to human nature, but what stops other people from pinning everything good done in the name of religion to human nature?

____________________________________________

That way of thinking, get's them trapped into religion the first place. See how it pulls people in, when they are not even aware of it!!!

Scary...Isn't it!

Almost a "bullshit" force pulling them in from one reality to the next. Just religion being around plants seeds in peoples heads about it. When one starts to believe more and more for whatever reason, the seed grows into the nice little plant, that just keeps growing and growing. Wow, funny how that plant is your ego, which they are boosting..Giving false hope and dreams making them rely on something they will never get!!!!

The plant never existed, just like the hope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

Religion can't really be compared to weapons because religious conviction is a motivation, not a weapon.

"I come, not to bring peace, but a sword." --- Jesus Christ (King James Version)

quote:Originally posted by Fundokiller:

Exclusivist Religions breed Exclusivism, Exclusivism breeds spite, spite breeds malice, malice breeds war. Slippery Slope FTW!

You can pin everything bad done in the name of religion to human nature, but what stops other people from pinning everything good done in the name of religion to human nature?

So many pins! I hope I don't get poked! *comedy drum roll*

quote:Originally posted by ArmsMerchant:

"I come, not to bring peace, but a sword." --- Jesus Christ (King James Version)

Jesus kicks so much ass.

I would like to point out, that while increased shooting incedents in a country (for example) could not be blamed on the weapons themselves, but they could reasonable be blamed on the assholes who own nation wide gunstores, fight politically for the right to own guns without checks etc.

Of course, it's almost always the asshole who pulled the trigger who bares primary responsablity, but everybody who made it easyer is also at fault

the wankers

hehehe yes, people who profit from war and destruction and manipulate events to manifest it to make sales can be blamed to a degree. Sometimes maybe more than those they hire to do the killing.

Gives everyone a flower.

Flower Power!!!!!

Wouldn't that be because who ever causes/ organises a war is responsible for all deaths within that war, whereas who ever kills withing the war only kills 1-15 ish people?

quote:Originally posted by Niceguy:

Wouldn't that be because who ever causes/ organises a war is responsible for all deaths within that war, whereas who ever kills withing the war only kills 1-15 ish people?

Everyone is responsible for their part in it I guess, and to their degree of involvement. The Organizer, the Followers, the funders, the planners, the killers.