The Religions VS Peace Paradox.

I think you should let the defence rest -j-f.
One merely gets lost in the "real" pseudo-argument: 'Ah, but they were not "real" Communists, "real" Christians", real "Socialists" "real" Peruvian llama-fetishists etc..blah...yawn."
Any correlation of acts of aggression with professed faith/philosophy can be be matched by a correlation of professed faith/philosophy with having been attacked. Shintoism and Buddhism made the Japs attack Pearl Harbour: Christian piety and forbearance made the Americans victims.
The point is not the correlation, if any, but the causal link, if any: and none can be persuasively shown. Do wars start because people are religious or are they started for other reasons and religion simply becomes a factor as does, say, nationalism?
There is no logic in what you are answering.
You made your point: sometime's it's true: sometimes it ain't - and no one seems to be able to contradict you.

Originally posted by jagdflieger
Again you have forwarded a thesis with no documentation supporting your claims. You made the claim that all Christians are anti-semitic. That the Christians were instrumental in the Nazi persecution of the Jews.

If you need documentations about the islamic invasion, the crusades, all the atrocities that happen in bosnia and in africa, then, i'm sorry, you we're talking like some one who knows well his history... Just take a step in the real world, look at what's happening in ireland ? And what's the vatican had done right now to correct the situtation ? Nothing... The christians are not anti-semitic and I never claimed that, but what's pope Pius and the vatican done in WW2 was. The catholic church has willingly supported the third rich because that they feared to loosed their power to the protestan movement in germany, wich Hitler showed interests with. It is totally inacceptable. I don't have the time right now but I'll post documentation about this later today.

The problem in ireland looks like the one in Israel, the church don't reconize the protestantianism as a legitimate religion. Remember what I said about that in my first post.

You also made the claim that religious differences are the primary source for conflict.

It's often true, and when it's not the primary source, it's always the most significant factor.

Religions are borgs
Resistance is futile

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.

Again I ask you to stop avoiding the real subject by talking about communism leaders, or communism at all.

I'm not an atheist, I'm a faithless christian who opened his eyes. What I try to make you understand is that the religions are about one thing : power. Religions are not democratic, they are fascist organisations. I have no problems with the worship of god but... read my signature and you'll understand clearly my position.

Their is a french expression that I would like to mention : Ta libert� s'arr�te l� ou celle d'un autre commence.



[Edited on 12-8-2003 by Salem]

Salem
You began your original post in making the statement about "about the awful atrocities committed in the name of religion". In the same paragraph, you then make the comment ", religion is the prime motivating factor behind these insane deeds". You list the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and unlisted murders of doctors ass examples. The paragraph ends with "History is littered with religious crimes, the inquisitions, the crusades, slavery, colonialism, countless wars and massacres." However what you made is merely an assertion. Except for the September 11, 2001 attack you make no specific mention of the atrocities of which you speak and you make no effort to prove that these acts were committed primarily based on religious belief. (Also you used the term "countless wars"; why do people always used the term "countless whatever"? The time that man has been on this planet is finite, therefore the sum of man's history is finite. Since periods of wars form a subset of man's history, then the set of all wars on this planet is finite. Now of course you know that all finite sets are countable, therefore the number of wars is countable and cannot be "countless". Of course this is beside the point except that I find that people carelessly use such terms as a form of rhetoric.)

You then make the assertion that there can be no world peace as long as there is any difference in religion. Then you make the further claim that only atheism can offer world peace as shown by a quote from your posting "in fact as long as there is religion, there will never be peace on earth." You go on to make statements such as "As long as there are different religions on this planet, there will be competition between them for followers, resulting in conflict and wars." Again you make assertions and present no real evidence to back up your claims. Also you make the comment "Religions are divisive, each claiming to be the only true religion, therefore claiming that other religions are false and untrue." Have you made a complete study of the world's major religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism? How do you know that all religions claim to be the only true religion? You go on making other statements which you do not attempt to prove.

As an counter example to your thesis that the conflict between religions is the root cause of atrocities and other conflicts, I listed the regimes of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot, and Hitler (all of whom were composed of primarily atheists (or basically atheists) and are known for the cause of millions of deaths. Your thesis states that the root cause of wars and atrocities is religious conflict, by inference one then would assume that the lack of religion would lead to tolerance. I then asked you to explain in light of your thesis how would you then explain the atrocities committed by these atheist movements. According to your thesis the absence of religion would guarantee world peace and tolerance, how then would you explain the regimes of Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and Pol Phot? You latter made the point that these were only three men, but their followers were also atheists.

Now let us look at the make up of three of the major wars which occurred in the last century (with the major religions listed):

World War I:
The Allies:
United Kingdom (Or Britain) - Protestant
France - Roman Catholic
Russia (before Revolution) - Russian Orthodox
United Sates of America - Protestant/Roman Catholic

The Central Powers:
Germany - Protestant/Roman Catholic
Austria-Hungary - Roman Catholic
Turkey - Muslim

Of course I did not list what might be called the minor players in World War I (Italy, Japan, etc.).

World War II:

The Allies:
United Kingdom (or Britain) - Protestant
France (until the fall) - Roman Catholic
Soviet Union - Atheist
United States of America - Protestant/Roman Catholic
China - Buddhist

The Axis:
Germany - Protestant/Roman Catholic/
- Neo Pagan Nordic/Occult
Italy - Roman Catholic
Japan - Shinto

Again only the major players were listed On the Axis side, there was Finland, Rumania, Hungary, Latvians, etc. On the Allied side, well pretty well most of the rest of the world except for Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, and Tago Tago.)

Iraq Iran War

Iraq - Muslim

Iran - Muslim

When I asked for you to defend these examples in light of your historical thesis, you went in a discussion of Hitler's anti-Semitism programs. Here again you made assertions but did not bother to back up your claims by quoting historical events, statements, or documents. However you did cross the line when you made a posting which angers me. "YOU CALLED ME AN ANTI-SEMITE AND I THOROUGHLY RESENT THAT IMPLICATION AND STATEMENT. CONSIDERING THE SUPPORT MANY OF MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS AND I HAVE GIVEN TO ISRAEL, YOU HAVE NO JUST REASON TO LAY THE CHARGE OF ANTI-SEMITISM ON ME OR MY ASSOCIATES. To quote your statement, "The your Christian church was supporting Adolph Hitler while he was exterminating the Jews." Later you amplified with "already been done to the smitten people before by the Christian churches." Hence you called all Christians anti-Semites with those two statements.

When I pointed out Christians who actively support Israel (Pat Robertson, Jack Van Impe, Hal Lindsay), you then made a statement claiming well it was the Pope and the Catholic Church who supported Hitler's persecution of the Jews. To quote, "The christians are not anti-semitic and I never claimed that, but what's pope Pius and the vatican done in WW2 was. The catholic church has willingly supported the third rich because that they feared to loosed their power to the protestan movement in germany, wich Hitler showed interests with." It seems that you go from all Christians to some Christians to the Pope. In a previous post you indeed did make statements that indicated you intended to mean that all Christians were anti-Semitic (i.e., "Christian churches"). By implication that is all Christian churches. However you still have not supported your claim that the Pope supported Hitler�s persecution of the Jews with any statements made by the Pope, any actions performed by the Pope, or any documents generated by the Pope.

Here is an interesting statement "Just take a step in the real world, look at what's happening in ireland ? And what's the vatican had done right now to correct the situtation ? Nothing... ". Well what just exactly is the Pope supposed to do about Northern Ireland? If he did or said anything, then you would be bent all out of shape because the Pope was entering into a political situation. Furthermore has not the Pope made comments about the commission of violence? What else is he to do - send the Vatican Guard to Ireland and arrest the IRA?

Basically you started out with the thesis "Far from promoting peace, religions do the opposite, they promote conflict." In your thesis you did make the claim that religious differences are the primary source of all conflicts. You made a reply, "It's often true, and when it's not the primary source, it's always the most significant factor." I always thought the most significant factor in a situation was the primary source. However I pointed out situations where religion was not a factor and the actions of so called communist regimes came to mind sincet these so called communist regimes claimed to have no religious affiliations. You replied, "Again I ask you to stop avoiding the real subject by talking about communism leaders, or communism at all." Well you started with the thesis that religions always promote conflict. I made a point that your view of history overly simplistic and thusly flawed and used these regimes as examples of where there was a lack of religion but still atrocities were committed by these regimes. Also I showed examples (World War I and World War II) where the line up of sides was not based on religion - where Muslim was allied with Christian, Shinto allied with Neo Nordic Pagan, Atheist was allied with Christian. Indeed this is not to say that sometimes religious differences do not play a role in world conflicts, but your statements that the elimination of religions is a false hope for world peace. Indeed until you take into account all the motivations for conflict (such as territorial aspirations, financial interests, ethnic differences, plain human greed, etc.), you will have no solutions for conflict. With your thesis then how would you view wars such as the Iraq vs Iran War, the War Of Kurukshetra (the Pandavas vs the Kauravas), or the Punic Wars where there was no major difference in religion.

PolskieWojsko made an astute comment "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." Here is a chilling insight. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot tore down the old gods and set themselves up as gods and in their new "godhood" committed atrocities on a level rarely seen in the world before. I ask if you were to eliminate all religions, all beliefs in God, how would you prevent men such as these to create "new religions" with themselves as a "god". Indeed we have already seen when the old religions and the old gods have been torn down, they become replaced with new "gods" - Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Pol Phot - "gods" who have no value for human life, "gods" who only care about their own ambitions, "gods" who seem to have any basis in common morality. Is this any better that what has gone on before?



[Edited on 13-8-2003 by jagdflieger]