aelf
Ashen One
You're being unfair to Christian liberals, for example.
Which has killed more? Politics or Religion?
- Thread starter CurtSibling
- Start date
You're being unfair to Christian liberals, for example.
Well, it's hardly fair to expect that religious people keep their religion out of politics, when their religion pretty much says that they should be active in affecting change and influencing people. It's all meant to be with good intentions, so I mean the previous sentence in a positive way.
And then even when it does, it is not the religion, as such, that leads to bad actions. It is the way it is twisted for the purposes of politics. The politics is where the motivation for doing bad things comes from, and the religion is what is used, in a distorted manner, to excuse it. But it isn't the fact that religion is in politics that is allowing this, but that people have bad intentions in the first place.
I didn't say religion is always fatal with politics.
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
Many commies would denounce you comparing vanilla communism with Stalin's tyrannical cult...
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CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
You forgot about centuries of religious genocides, human sacrifices, and executions.
Methinks that pushes the numbers up beyond even industrial era slaughter...
Woulnd't you agree? (not that I expect you to)
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The whole point Dachs was making in the other thread was that whilst these things on the surface appear to be purely based on religion, the underlying causes and motivations were political. Or at least I think that's what he was saying; don't wanna put words in his mouth.
Inevitably linked to politics.
Again, political in nature; strengthens the power of the ruling elite
Also political. Useful solution for "dangerous" ideas
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
When a saracen or crusader burns a village down and puts the occupants to the sword...
I blame religion - I don't really care which political group he supports...
When a SS trooper or Sudanese militia slaughters a whole township of innocents...
I blame politics - I don't really care what faith these men follow...
...
I blame religion - I don't really care which political group he supports...
When a SS trooper or Sudanese militia slaughters a whole township of innocents...
I blame politics - I don't really care what faith these men follow...
...
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
Not always - A group of rabid fanatics are not thinking about who a witch votes for.
Not when the ruling elite are born into power anyway.
Aztecs for instance, truly believed they were appeasing their gods.
Religions also have a list of dangerous ideas - They call it heresy.
Never underestimate the irrationality if religious fervour...
Many inquisitors and clerics only had god in mind when doing their crimes.
History repeatedly shows us men are totally clear-cut in their fanaticism.
To call them political is putting too cynical a point on their evil acts...
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aelf
Ashen One
Well, it's all integrated anyway.
I compared nothing. I just have no idea what your comment is supposed to mean
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
Yes, we know you do. We are saying that you are wrong.
Are you using the royal "we"...?
As it stands, your opinion carries no weight to me. I am not convinced
that thousands of years of religious slaughter is outranked by a few
decades of industrial-era atrocity...Try and convince me...
I'm all ears.
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I wasn't saying that, exactly. I agree that religious motivations played a role in getting people to participate in certain conflicts. I would also say that a kaleidoscope of other motivations worked on the participants, and that sometimes it's not so easy to disassociate one from the others. Actually, screw "sometimes"; it's pretty hard to tell most of the time.
Lots of people really did believe that by going to the Levant and killing Muslims, they would be doing their co-religionists a favor. Lots of people really did believe they'd be better off in the afterlife if they did the same. Lots of people thought they would be getting in on some sweet commercial deals in the newly conquered territory. Lots of people treated the new territories as a place to plunder and get rich. And a lot of these were the same people. All these different motivations coexisted within people, and they weren't considered mutually exclusive. The Venetians, for instance, went to Judaea to get rich, but they also mostly believed that they were really called by God to do what they did, lend military help to the Crusaders and secure the Holy Places for God's People.
Does that make the conflicts in question religious wars, and the conflicts' victims, victims of "religion"? Kind of. It's not black and white at all.
Since when do witches constitutes an ethnic group?
So? Dictators still need popular support.
That's what they want us plebeians to think.
Who determines what's heretical? The people in power. Politicians, in one sense.
Hardly. "Heretical" ideas after all represent a direct threat to their authority. God is never the only reason.
People didn't vote back then.
I don't claim to know much about the Inquisition, but I would think that large scale ''witch-hunts" can easily be put down to spreading fear, and more importantly, forcing conformity and obedience.
Power needs consolidating.
The exception that proves the rule?
The problem here is separating the underlying causes of different killings, and the more personal justifications. A witch-hunt could be ordered by the Church, for example, in order to create fear and increase conformity and obedience, completed unrelated to religious beliefs, but using it as a justification. Sure, the individuals that actually burn people at the stake may believe that what they are doing is good because of their religion, but the underlying reason, and cause of such a witch-hunt in the first place, is purely political.
The fact that religion is capable of being used to obtain political goals is not so much a reflection on religion or specific religions themselves, but on how important religion and religions are to some people, that they can be manipulated by their religious overlords, or however you wish to describe them.
Which leads to the need to divide religious beliefs from organised religion.
Edit: And this last bit can kinda act as a reply to Dachs as well.
Patroklos
Deity
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2003
- Messages
- 12,721
Neither, economics trumps both.
However, even a casual examination of histories wars shows that only a minority of them are overtly religious, and usually not the most destructive ones. Even when you look at wars that have easily recognizable religious divisions between sides like many of the European succession wars it’s just a thin veneer, window dressing to disguise a far less noble political power grab.
However, even a casual examination of histories wars shows that only a minority of them are overtly religious, and usually not the most destructive ones. Even when you look at wars that have easily recognizable religious divisions between sides like many of the European succession wars it’s just a thin veneer, window dressing to disguise a far less noble political power grab.
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
I compared nothing. I just have no idea what your comment is supposed to mean
Then...Let me educate you.
Pure communism tears down traditional religion, in favour of party loyalty.
That is why Karalysia's words about not being able to seperate politics and religion held no water...
Communists tend towards atheism. Stalin's was not a true commie...
He broke the rules, killing any traditional communists in the party.
And I will concede, he did create a warped religion around himself...
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CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
Since when were we speaking of ethnic groups?
I'm talking about dynasties, not a flash in the pan junta.
Human sacrifices were not to cow people, but to honour
the gods. People celebrated these events, rich and poor...
Yes, don't forget the alien lizards controlling it all, eh?
Not always - Many in power during earlier times were driven by religious fervour.
You seem to be merely trying to transplant our era's views onto another era...
Again - You are thinking in 21st century terms.
Perhaps you should research the dark ages and tell me if the leaders then
were completely driven by political goals? You'll see many were not...
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I don't really think you can separate things that neatly. That's the point.The problem here is separating the underlying causes of different killings, and the more personal justifications. A witch-hunt could be ordered by the Church, for example, in order to create fear and increase conformity and obedience, completed unrelated to religious beliefs, but using it as a justification. Sure, the individuals that actually burn people at the stake may believe that what they are doing is good because of their religion, but the underlying reason, and cause of such a witch-hunt in the first place, is purely political.
The fact that religion is capable of being used to obtain political goals is not so much a reflection on religion or specific religions themselves, but on how important religion and religions are to some people, that they can be manipulated by their religious overlords, or however you wish to describe them.
Which leads to the need to divide religious beliefs from organised religion.
Edit: And this last bit can kinda act as a reply to Dachs as well.
I'd call what caused the most "tribalism". "You're different, we're gonna attack you". Look at the Aboriginal Americans. Was their religion vastly different from the neighboring tribes around them? Yet they warred all the time against one another.
