The Religions VS Peace Paradox.

Inexplicably there is this perception that religions are about peace. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The evidence proves the exact opposite. Daily we read about the awful atrocities committed in the name of religion. In the Middle East, in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, in Indonesia, the Philippines, Northern Ireland, England, Nigeria, the USA, Afghanistan, Iran, Algeria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Mexico, etc. From the Sept. 11 massacre to the murder of doctors who perform abortions, religion is the prime motivating factor behind these insane deeds. History is littered with religious crimes, the inquisitions, the crusades, slavery, colonialism, countless wars and massacres.

Far from promoting peace, religions do the opposite, they promote conflict. As long as there are different religions, as long as there are different denominations within religions, in fact as long as there is religion, there will never be peace on earth.

There will never be world peace if religious leaders don't stop insisting that their particular brand of religion is the one and only true religion, the only path to salvation.
For peace to have a chance, religious leaders would have to publicly recognize that other religions have equally legitimate claims to the truth, in other words they will have to admit that their religion might be the false one. Of course this will never happen because religions require absolute belief, absolute faith, in order to receive the level of commitment that they desire.
The level of commitment, the level of devotion that high priests demand cannot be achieved among followers if there is the slightest doubt about the truth of their particular religion. They cannot allow for any uncertainties, any doubts about the truth and validity of their religion. People are not going to base their whole lives around, devote their lives to, blindly obey, worship, indoctrinate their children, donate money, pay a tithe, become preachers, priests, monks, nuns and missionaries etc. for a system that they are not absolutely convinced is true.

Which religion?
Different religions all claiming absolute truth, only one can be right. Religions are threatened by other religions because the mere existence of other religions casts doubts about the truth of any one religion. The mere fact that there are many religions raises the possibility of any particular religion being wrong.

Religions will always refuse to recognize that other religions have equally legitimate claims to the truth, because this would mean that they have to admit the converse, i.e. that all religions including themselves have an equal probability of being false. Claims of exclusive truth are vital in religious marketing, but imply that other religions are false, that they are based on lies, that they worship false gods. This leads to intolerance, animosity, violence and wars.

One of the main causes of conflict in the world is the fierce competition between religions, and between denominations within religions, for followers, for the minds and money of the public, for power and influence.
Religion is a multi billion dollar business, religions hold enormous political clout. Religious hierarchies love power. It takes ambition to become a pope, archbishop, bishop, rabbi, ayatollah, imam, mullah, high priest or guru. Ambitious people always want more, more status, more power and influence, more money. Religious leaders not only want to hold on to their followers but they want to increase their number of followers.

As long as there are different religions on this planet, there will be competition between them for followers, resulting in conflict and wars.

You shall have no other gods before me. (First of the Ten Commandments)
Religions are divisive, each claiming to be the only true religion, therefore claiming that other religions are false and untrue. This stimulates intolerance, hate, bigotry, an us and them, laager mentality, which often leads to violence and conflict. It is a common tactic of religions to demonize other competing religions, this stimulates intolerance and hate, leading to violent conflict, resulting in destruction, suffering and death.

God's chosen people
Claims that members of a particular religion or race are special in the eyes of their god leads to arrogance, to feelings of superiority, that others are of less value, less worthy, that their lives are cheaper. This makes it much easier to slaughter them.

None of the religious conflicts have been as long lasting, intense and destructive as the christian/islam conflict.
Today there is a very real danger of a global conflict between these two largest religions on earth. With Judaism acting as the catalyst. Christianity and Islam both have their roots in ancient Judaism. Right from their inception there has been constant conflict, strife and violent confrontation, fueled by the intense rivalry between these closely related religions. Millions of lives have been lost.
The September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York has triggered a sharp rise in tension between christianity and islam and there now exists the very real possibility that this will escalate into a global confrontation.
Religion could plunge the whole planet into war, with disastrous consequences for mankind.

For as long as they have existed there has been animosity and strife between religions. As long as religions claim to be mutually exclusive, as long as they claim to be the one and only true religion, as long as they claim that the other religions, the other gods, the other worshipping rituals are false, as long as they demonize each other, there will never be peace on earth.

SICK TO THE CORE
This world is a scary place, over half the population of this planet worship a mass murderer. Jews, christians and muslims worship a god guilty of genocide (Genesis 7:23), and what's really scary is that they define this god as good.
How can religions that worship a mass murderer ever be considered religions of peace.
It should not be a surprise to anyone who has read the Old Testament that the Abrahamic faiths would inspire violence.
The 'holy scriptures' of the Abrahamic faiths describe a sick, twisted, jealous, vengeful, unjust, punishing, tyrannical, fascistic, mass murdering, insecure megalomaniac of a god. This god is a truly despicable character who inspires truly despicable behavior.

The more christians ignore their bible the better they are as people.

The more muslims ignore their koran the better they are as people.

Well Salem, I would suggest that you go back to your history books and reread them for the number of people who died at the hands of atheists (Stalin - 25,0000+, Mao Tse-tung - 25,000+, Hitler who really did not believe in God but adapted the philosophy of Neitzsche - 20,000+). Also I would advise you to study the history of the Japanese in World War II. Do not start with 1941 but go back to 1931 when Japan invaded China. The Japanese were basically attempting to form their own Asian empire. You view of the Bible and its message is totally wrong, your view of history is skewed by your anti-theist leanings. You see history only as a struggle between religions. However if you feel that atheism will lead to world wide peace. Look at the careers of atheist leaders (Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot, Hitler). Since these men were atheists or basically atheists, then I would suppose that you would consider them your heros???

When will everyone realise and accept that humans are inherently violent and tribal in their mentalities.

An example.

In most big cities streets fight with next door streets.

They group together to fight next door neighbourhood.

Neighbourhoods group together to fight the next neighbourhood.

North city vs South occasionally east/west

State or country vs state/country

Continent vs Continent

Our world against another.

So the only way to make peace happen on earth is to find another planet and declare war on it but as previously commented fighting for peace is like f###ing for virginity.

and anyway some people would side with the aliens especially if we attacked them before they attacked us.

Or alternatively read 'All the Universe in a mason Jar'
an excellent short story by Joe Haldeman I think.

Originally posted by jagdflieger
Well Salem, I would suggest that you go back to your history books and reread them for the number of people who died at the hands of atheists (Stalin - 25,0000+, Mao Tse-tung - 25,000+, Hitler who really did not believe in God but adapted the philosophy of Neitzsche - 20,000+). Also I would advise you to study the history of the Japanese in World War II. Do not start with 1941 but go back to 1931 when Japan invaded China. The Japanese were basically attempting to form their own Asian empire. You view of the Bible and its message is totally wrong, your view of history is skewed by your anti-theist leanings. You see history only as a struggle between religions. However if you feel that atheism will lead to world wide peace. Look at the careers of atheist leaders (Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot, Hitler). Since these men were atheists or basically atheists, then I would suppose that you would consider them your heros???

I'm not the one who didn't done his homeworks.

For all the 2,000 years, there was no act of war against the Jews in which the church didn't play an intrinsic part. And whenever there was a trace of mercy, charity, or tolerance to be found amid the savagery, it came not from the church but from humanitarians in the civil world, as in Napoleonic France or during the American Revolution. The your christian church was supporting Adolf Hitler while he was exterminating the jews.

Everything he did to the Jews, all the horribly unspeakable misdeeds, had already been done to the smitten people before by the Christian churches. . . . The isolation of Jews into ghetto camps, the wearing of the yellow spot, the burning of Jewish books, and finally the burning of the people - Hitler learned it all from the church. However, the church burned Jewish women and children alive, while Hitler granted them a quicker death, choking them first with gas. Hitler was not beleiving in god ? Yes, but Hitler was a tyrant and a psyco, two things that most atheists are not.

Power corupts. Whatever religion or phylosophy you pratice.
Keep this in mind, and if you think that religious leaders are better, perhaps you should go back to your homework.

Comrade Salem, I totally agree with you. You hit the nail right on the head. As for Hitler and Stalin etc., they made themselves a God in a sense. The people of the Soviet Union were made to worship Stalin as a god, and their religion was forbidden.

We will not see true world cooperation and prosperity until all the current religions are eliminated. This is not to say people can still believe in a higher being... they will just stop giving money to the church.

Na Zdrowie!

Salem, some time ago I saw a post which stated "The Jews run America" (of course this is a holocaust revisionist anti-semitic crap statement). I posted a comment "Prove your case and quote your sources to support your statement". The silence was deafening. To you I will post a comment "Prove your case and quote your sources to support your statements". Since you equate anti-semitism with Christianity how do you explain men such as Pat Roberson, the Christian you all love to hate, an ardent supporter of Israel, Hal Lindsay - ardent supporter of Israel, Jack Van Impe - supporter of Israel, and me - whose support of Israel would be considered somewhat on the rabid side. Also you failed to address the issue of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot, the little Japanese excursion into China. PolskieWojsko study some of the nastier sides of the Polish resistance in World War II (such as turning Jews over to the Gestopo.)

Yes Jagd, I am aware of what some of my people did. There are always a few bad apples. But wait... who do you think killed more Jews, the Poles, our your German Comrades? Funny to hear a German telling a pole that he killed alot of Jews!

Na Zdrowie!

Sorry to tell you Comrade, there were two Waffen SS's. A lot of the Polish, Estonian, Latvian recuits were in the Sonderkommado which were the death squads and ran the concentration camps. Just read the list of the guards charged with war crimes - lot of non-german names. By the way except for Reichsmarschall Goering, no member of the Luftwaffe was ever charged with a war crime at Nuremburg.

Also you have not addressed your comrade Mao Tse-tung's carreer or your comrade Pol Phot.

Don't even get me started about the Germans... They killed my uncle and almost killed my grandfather(They weren't even jewish). Thank god he escaped(three times I might add) and killed a good number of the facsist bastards before the war ended. I'm sure there were officers from many countries in your 'Squads'.

As for the high ranking officials, I think they should all have been shot in the back of the head.

Mao and Phot are not of my concern, if you really want to know I can reply tommorrow when I have more time.

PolskieWojsko well I thought all communists were buddies, you know - allies, friends, fellow comrades; the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba. I thought all the communist nations were allies and friends. I thought you would have least learned something about Mao's carreer.

Young Grasshopper, you have so much to learn! Those countries you named were not even close to being Communist. More like dictatorships with some socialism mixed in there somewhere.

Na Zdrowie!

Well Mao alwasy said he was a communist, Fidel always said he was a communist. Now I realize the Soviet Union is gone, but when it was alive and well, its leaders claimed they were communists. Tell me what are the communist countries of today by your standards.

There are none in existense, nor did they ever exist.

Now there is a resounding vote of approval for a political system! Are you trying to say as soon as the people (Mao, Lennin, Stalin, Kim, Pol Phot, Castro) got into power, they tossed "Das Kapital" out the window?You mean that there has never been a communist regime in the entire world???? That these people were only saying that they were communists?

Very good Grasshopper! You are learning. There has never been a communist country in the history of man.

PolskieWojsko - one question. Since these men tossed "Das Kapital" out of the window when they achieved power, how do you know if the system will work? You have no precedents in history.

I don't have time to go into detail but I will say that Capitalism will eventually eat itself. How can a system that thrives off of evil and greed survive forever?

I'm tired, Guten Nacht

Originally posted by jagdflieger
Salem, some time ago I saw a post which stated "The Jews run America" (of course this is a holocaust revisionist anti-semitic crap statement). I posted a comment "Prove your case and quote your sources to support your statement". The silence was deafening. To you I will post a comment "Prove your case and quote your sources to support your statements". Since you equate anti-semitism with Christianity how do you explain men such as Pat Roberson, the Christian you all love to hate, an ardent supporter of Israel, Hal Lindsay - ardent supporter of Israel, Jack Van Impe - supporter of Israel, and me - whose support of Israel would be considered somewhat on the rabid side. Also you failed to address the issue of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot, the little Japanese excursion into China. PolskieWojsko study some of the nastier sides of the Polish resistance in World War II (such as turning Jews over to the Gestopo.)

I don't see your point with Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and Pol Phot. Atheist facists represent probably 0,000001 % of all the facist that ever existed. You try to avoid the true subject of this topic by comparing all atheists to 3 persons. It's almost racist.
Perhaps you failed to mention the islamic invasion, the crusades, bosnia and all the other wars that currently happen in Africa. I will not ask you to "Prove your case and quote your sources to support your statement", because the silence will be defeaning.

I don't want that religions get eradicated, I want that peoples get educated enough to conserve their free will.

The point is that these "communist" movements were lead by atheists, the members (i. e., the rank and file) were atheists. This includes Mao and his followers, Pol Phot and his followers. Almost the entire Bolshevik party were atheists. You' re claim seem to support the concept that theistic movements were inherently bad.
Again you have forwarded a thesis with no documentation supporting your claims. You made the claim that all Christians are anti-semitic. You also made the claim that religious differences are the primary source for conflict. That the Christians were instrumental in the Nazi persecution of the Jews. I might point out that Mao Tse-tung, Stalin, and Pol Phot claimed to be communist not fascists. In short you have made a lot of assertions, but have not show any documentation to support you thesis.