h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Religion is the major cause of wars.

1. In most religions there is a built in mechanism of intolerance. See for example the first rule of Moses: You shall not have a god beside me. (Something like that)

2. Religion suppresses man's natural way to live a full life of emotions and sexuality. The same way a pressure cooker without a steamvalve explodes, wars are more likely to happen with people with suppressed or manipulated emotions. World war I and II are very good examples for that.

Bizarre. You say that religion is the major cause of war, and then cite the two world wars in support of your agument.

The first was caused, at bottom, by a disjunction between political alliances and political reality (and the huge casualty figures - on all sides - because of a disjunction between the strategy of war and the technology being used). The second was caused by the cult of man (Arbeit macht Frei); surely in itself a strong argument in favour of religion.

But - to echo a point made elsewhere - let's not confuse religion with God here.

Wonko, you are wrong. Men are the major cause of wars. They were all started by men. The people who did all the killing were men. Get rid of men, and we'll be rid of wars!

Wonko, you are wrong. Men are the major cause of wars. They were all started by men. The people who did all the killing were men. Get rid of men, and we'll be rid of wars!

Again the major wars of the past century, which killed more people than *all the previous conflicts in recorded history combined*, had nothing whatsoever to do with religion.

See http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/j/justwar.htm , which talks about the Just War Theory, and http://www.learnworld.com/LW/LWT.WarTheory.html , which gives a list of broad resources covering general war theory.

You are confusing the word "cause" with "excuse" -- other excuses used in war-making have included "what did you call our King?", "look at all that nice beachfront property", and the ever popular "we have nothing better to do right now."

What it all boils down to is one person sitting in a room somewhere with a group of advisors says "Look at all that nice land sitting over there. Look at their happy people. Look at their wonderful economy. How could we most easily gain all that they have?"

One or more of the advisors look knowingly at eachother and say "Let's have our military pay them a visit."

The leader says "But we can't just invade them, how will our people support it?"

Another advisor says "Let's just point out to our people that -- the larger/smaller/darker/lighter , funny sounding language, strange customs, silly religion, perceived ancient insult -- makes them inferior to our obviously more civilized ways, and look at all the they have."

The leader says something like "You know, that might just work. As a child, on a playground, a person from called me a name. I always hated him. Yes, let's tell our people that, they'll join the military in droves."

The motivator is economic. The excuse is an easily-obvious difference. The excuse is not the *cause*.

Economics is the primary driving force behind war -- war is highly profitable if you are the victor.

As for religion, yes it has its share of wars fought in the name of deity A, B, or C. But religion is NOT the primary cause of wars. NONE of the major (half million or more) extinctions of the past century were based on religious differences, and the deaths caused by non-religious war in the previous century far exceeded the deaths caused by *all religious conflicts* over *all recorded history*, *combined*.

Those are the facts. Yes, the Bible, the Talmud, and the Holy Quran are bloody books. Human history is far bloodier.

If you are going to condemn religion because it has been used as an excuse to kill people you had better also condemn politics, "honor", skin color, cuisine, boredom, shape/size of nose, hair color, vendetta, literature, music, language, art, sports, and most of all, money.

Organized religion is far from perfect, but today it gives a few billion lives meaning and moral direction, and to its credit probably prevents far more conflicts than it causes.

Intolerance is a problem in some religions, but answering intolerance with intolerance is not the way to go about opening eyes.

Speaking for myself I belong to no organized religious group -- I never quite fit in to the molds presented to me by the various Christian and non-Christian organizations in my area. I do not justify my dislike of organized religion by any reason other than my personal belief system did not fit well into any one group's beliefs. Similarly I do not claim any inside information that makes me more favored than any other individual in the eyes of a Creator -- I just do the best I can, for myself.

And this entire discussion has had some really thought-provoking posts, yours included.

Regards,

-Joe G.

Thanks for your well thought replies!

Have you seen the pictures or films of men cheerfully going to the WW I war? They were happy, if not thrilled to go. That's how the war started. A thrilling event. It had almost no economical reason, it started out of emotions (at least on the german side).

And that's what I said about suppressed emotions.

The WW II was even worse. All negative emotions you can think of were being used. But these negative emotions can all be found in the bible. So the nazis carried out what hundrets of years of intolerance and hatred of the church inflicted into the people.

What is the difference between being religious (believing in god) and religion? There is no thing as pure believe. If you believe something like god, you are very sure it's the absolute truth and then you want this truth to be executed on others.

Thanks for your well thought replies!

Have you seen the pictures or films of men cheerfully going to the WW I war? They were happy, if not thrilled to go. That's how the war started. A thrilling event. It had almost no economical reason, it started out of emotions (at least on the german side).

And that's what I said about suppressed emotions.

The WW II was even worse. All negative emotions you can think of were being used. But these negative emotions can all be found in the bible. So the nazis carried out what hundrets of years of intolerance and hatred of the church inflicted into the people.

What is the difference between being religious (believing in god) and religion? There is no thing as pure believe. If you believe something like god, you are very sure it's the absolute truth and then you want this truth to be executed on others.

Negative emotions are a part of virtually every human literary work.

I understand what you are saying about people being reassured by various interpretations of religious literature into believing that they will reap some greater reward for service to their country. When the state and the church are deeply intertwined and the church visibly supports the state "die serving your country and go directly to Heaven" certainly must make self sacrifice seem easier.

I'd still say though that although a war may be justified using religious arguments the facts leading to the war almost invariably have more mundane or prosaic foundations: economy, land, food, or water. The major wars of the past century, even World Wars I and II were wars of economy/resources. German soldiers may have prayed as they went into battle, but that does not change the greater fact that the resources they captured went back to line the coffers of the financially-stressed Reich, which is a much more lowly motivation.

Not to at all trivialize the Holocaust, but in World War II Jews were but one convenient target to mobilize ordinary citizens and to justify the siezure of resources for use by the state. The propaganda used to reinforce this belief was that the Nazis sought the "liberation" of Germany and the rest of Europe from the "impure" peoples that schemed to control and subvert it. Jews, Romany, Poles, and homosexuals were all sent off to the camps.

This idea of impurity stemmed from religious beliefs, but it was simply exploited to facilitate the deeper economic and social goals that were the origin of the conflict.

I do not see religion causing these wars -- I see it misused to sustain them, but again I also see media and social institutions similarly misused.

Because an institution, be it religious or social has the potential to be abused does not mean we should seek to abandon it. The logical human must simply recognize that any institution or idea can be misused, subverted, and corrupted -- we are a fiendishly clever lot. As responsible human beings we need to keep our eyes and ears open and question whenever someone presents us with a moral argument to justify heinous acts.

Religion and spirituality enhance the lives of several billion people today. If we live by the rule that morality should never be used to justify immorality, then religion is put back in its rightful place as an enhancement of the human condition, not as a detractor.

Regards,

-Joe G.

Negative emotions are a part of virtually every human literary work.

I understand what you are saying about people being reassured by various interpretations of religious literature into believing that they will reap some greater reward for service to their country. When the state and the church are deeply intertwined and the church visibly supports the state "die serving your country and go directly to Heaven" certainly must make self sacrifice seem easier.

I'd still say though that although a war may be justified using religious arguments the facts leading to the war almost invariably have more mundane or prosaic foundations: economy, land, food, or water. The major wars of the past century, even World Wars I and II were wars of economy/resources. German soldiers may have prayed as they went into battle, but that does not change the greater fact that the resources they captured went back to line the coffers of the financially-stressed Reich, which is a much more lowly motivation.

Not to at all trivialize the Holocaust, but in World War II Jews were but one convenient target to mobilize ordinary citizens and to justify the siezure of resources for use by the state. The propaganda used to reinforce this belief was that the Nazis sought the "liberation" of Germany and the rest of Europe from the "impure" peoples that schemed to control and subvert it. Jews, Romany, Poles, and homosexuals were all sent off to the camps.

This idea of impurity stemmed from religious beliefs, but it was simply exploited to facilitate the deeper economic and social goals that were the origin of the conflict.

I do not see religion causing these wars -- I see it misused to sustain them, but again I also see media and social institutions similarly misused.

Because an institution, be it religious or social has the potential to be abused does not mean we should seek to abandon it. The logical human must simply recognize that any institution or idea can be misused, subverted, and corrupted -- we are a fiendishly clever lot. As responsible human beings we need to keep our eyes and ears open and question whenever someone presents us with a moral argument to justify heinous acts.

Religion and spirituality enhance the lives of several billion people today. If we live by the rule that morality should never be used to justify immorality, then religion is put back in its rightful place as an enhancement of the human condition, not as a detractor.

Regards,

-Joe G.

"This idea of impurity stemmed from religious beliefs, ...". I'd rather not say stemmed, but accelerated and pushed by.

WW I was not started because of economical reasons. Wars for that reason have been done in the colonies.

WW II was started out of hatred: basic instincts were mobilized. And that is what christianity is all about: to neglect yourself until only hatred of yourself is left.

The WWII thing is a bit foggy... Hitler did write that "mein kampf" thingy, and as fdar as I know, it's full of hate-propaganda. I haven't actually read the book myself. However, I tend to belive that the War was started for a different reason. I think Hitler and whomever it was that supported him from the beginning had a vision of a perfect world, and somehow they assumed that the Aryans (later corrections: north-western germanics) were the ones who deserved to rule this perfect world, and that all other humans were lesser examples of the species. He wanted a huge, selfcontained (third?) empire. Then he used the hatred of the people to fuel his war. It's easier to become a dictator if your people belive that you are Messiah.
Wether that has anything to do with christianity or not, I don't know.. But this talking point was supposed to be on God, not Christianity or any other interpretation of that age old idea...

The concept of god implies the concept of intolerance.

Why?

It's obvious, isn't it?

I do not see that you can make the leap in logic simply by comparing perceived characteristics. There is definitely a subculture of Christianity that emphasizes differences in order to foster conformity among its people, but it's in the greater nature of things for humanity to always be grouping into Us and Them.

As long as there are Smiths and Browns there will be Us and Them, irregardless of personal belief -- labeling and grouping are human traits larger than any institution.

Regarding denial, that's a beef of mine against Christianity in general -- we are in agreement. The god of hatred, denial, and lies is probably not the god people want to send their prayers.

But some people think that's what they have to do to lead spiritually fulfilling lives. :/

Peace,

-Joe G.

Peace to you!

High Duke, I agree with you. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with religion or belief in God. I believe in God, and I don't hold that as an absolute Truth, and I don't insist that other people believe the same thing, and I will not do anybody any kind of violence to persuade her/him that my viewpoint is the correct one. My beliefs dictate unconditional love and compassion, not just to humans, but to all living creatures.

In fact my belief in God compels me to consider every person my equal, to have nothing but love and respect for them, including their viewpoints which mostly differ from mine. I don't mind if someone else is an atheist, or an agnostic, or a Christian, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Muslim, or anything else: I love and respect them, I will even protect them from danger or help them if they need my help, because their interests are as important to me as my own. My concept of God is that God loves everybody and therefore I am free to love everybody. Also God does not want us to be anything less than the best we can be. God doesn't want us to feel humble and guilty and miserable. In fact we can share in the power and glory of God - we ourselves, all of us, are holy and infinitely valuable. We are therefore free to love ourselves unconditionally as everyone else. And what is more, God doesn't even expect people to believe in Him/Her/It, or to obey rules and regulations. God sets no conditions. But God is happy if we are happy; God is fulfilled if we are fulfilled.

Those are my views and I don't think they're intolerant.

Did you give a name to your own god? Maybe "God of the Unmentionable Marauding Pillowcase". I like your god!!! If anybody had such good intentions as you do (may I annotate that I have), it certainly would be a very good world.

Your god only has one flaw: it doesn't match to the real world. Neither to the other gods invented by mankind, nor to reality. It is too good.

Your god loves everybody? Good. Does it really love murderes? Does it love you more? Does it love you when you're having sex with yourself watching pictures of beautiful Ladies (possibly from behind)? Hope so! These questions lead us to moral issues, to good and bad. And to intolerance.

There are quite a few like you, intellectual believers I call them, doing no harm to anybody. BUT, you are entirely different to those who carry out the word of god. Who are intolerant, manipulating, fighting, suppressing and using their power. AND, you are supporting them, by using the same words for an entirely different concept.

I think you could replace "God" in your posting with "positive belief in mankind", and you'd be out of the way of bloody religions.

BTW, I think you are a very sensitive chap and I like you.

Is a hug coming up here?

What I (too) fail to understand is the need for God in UMP's philosophy. (Allthough in this case I agree that it's a perfectly harmless, and quite possibly a constructive take on religion...)

Yes it is (Did you look at his picture, btw?).

Hi JAR, I'll have a look at your place!

I have very good reasons for believing that God actually does exist - and my philosophy is very much more extensive than the little bit I mentioned here. But I am not out to convert anybody so I'm not going to go into long lists of reasons and arguments. I just wanted to go on record as saying that I don't think all religion is bad!

I respect your reasons. I once was a big Jesus fan.

I hope we can be friends!