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It's nothing if not a Word Factory, this place....🙂
You can’t be a real practicing Christian and believe anything other than the Bible is the word of God.
That may come as a surprise to some of the Christians I know.
Are they REAL Christians though or just whatever the hipster version of a Christian is? What is a real Christian? I have a friend called Christian and he’s real or at least I think he is.
it includes the clear statements that God spoke through his prophets
That's not exactly clear, it doesn't specify if any of the message was re-interpreted or just dictated verbatim. Plus, not everyone in the bible is a prophet, are they?
You can’t be a real practicing Christian and believe anything other than the Bible is the word of God.
Incorrect. The bible is not the literal word of God, it's inspired by God but written by humans. And, apparently, they put in a lot of other stuff alongside about seafood and fabrics and the like. Which backs up my point about religion and society being completely intertwined and co-dependent, which backs up my original point about wars that appear to be religious not actually being religious and that whilst the groups involved might've been different I doubt there would have been fewer conflicts without religion.
Something that it’s okay to mock and say bad things about, yet the same doesn’t apply to other belief systems.
Just to be clear - you can mock all you want, as long as you don't break rule 1 (which you probably will). What annoys me is people banging home a point with absolute certainty when they clearly haven't understood any of it and are completely unwilling to listen, think and discuss the subject. Example: sitting through mass enough times doesn't make you a theologian or a historian. Now, I'm not claiming to be either, what I want is a good discussion. If there's one thing in the whole of human experience that is least likely to be a black and white simple issue, it's religion.
Anyone want to discuss the Viet Minh, Khmer Rouge, VRS, Third Reich and Bolsheviks and how religion contributed to those conflicts?
Yes, that's what I want to talk about 🙂 (not sarcasm)
Just to be clear – you can mock all you want, as long as you don’t break rule 1
Depends where you happen to live. I wouldn’t fancy my chances of being free to mock in certain parts of the American south or Middle East.
what I want is a good discussion.
You wanted a good discussion so chose STW chat forum and religion? Has your account been hacked or something? All joking aside you appear to be just as incapable of listening as TJ and others who have debated the topic.
The original debate was pretty much settled on page one. People are generally dickheads and tribal. Religion facilitates tribalism, makes it easier and more convenient to ‘other’ people and therefore can be used as a great reason to start trouble, make existing trouble worse or rile people up when other methods (politics, fear, resources etc) fail to get the desired results such as war. If religion doesn’t work perhaps resources will or othering a group of people based on other criteria. Perhaps a combination of some of the aforementioned points.
Basically people are ****s and if something can be used as a convenient tool it will be. Religion is low hanging fruit in that regard so has obviously been a factor in a few wars.
The original debate was pretty much settled on page one. People are generally dickheads and tribal.
This ^^^
Put it in another way I haven't heard of any religious teaching that says annihilate thy neighbours ... unless they are being interpreted by certain people.
I was researching the history Chinese dynasties, gave up when I was near to the Last Emperor, and what I noticed was at no point was religion was used an excuse to conquer or to annihilate their opponents. Although there were already many religions (local ones) but most of their excuse is rather simple. e.g. I want your land and resources bow to me or I destroy you. That's it really. No ifs or buts but just because they can. Even the Mongol, although very superstitious, they conquered because they could as they really had no need to have an excuse to conquer.
Other parts of Asia can be a mixture of using religion as an excuse to conquer from India to Indonesia. Perhaps you can say that they are a bit "civilised" at attempting to use religion as an excuse to conquer unlike China and the Mongol in those days.
I wonder if there are any specific examples of wars being avoided because of religion?
Kennedy was Catholic and that might've influenced his actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that's about all I can come up with.
Mol, your question has been answered.
Religion is a powerful man made constuct that can be used in an infinite variety of ways.
People can be persuaded to wage war for a variety of reasons.
Religion may or may not be one factor amongst many in individual conflicts, but there are many examples where it is.
Faith would appear to be intrinsic human trait, irrespective of religious belief.
And if you actually want a discussion, taking on board the views presented to you is a prerequisite.
I wonder if there are any specific examples of wars being avoided because of religion?
Perhaps Ashoka the Great, the Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, after he converted to Buddhism ...