Originally posted by Ghostavo
Lib, I've never seen such an interesting argument about the causes of violence in the modern world. You say that religion has been the blunt of violence, and yet in the past centuries, most violence was caused by religion itself (crusades, jihad, inquisition, etc...).
That is patently false. Both World Wars were fought over subjects that were not religious. The 100 Years War was fought over subjects that were not religious. The myriad of wars fought between the German princedoms were not religious. The Napoleonic Wars were not religious. The Crusades were the exception, not the rule in the wars of Europe in the Middle Ages. The wars of conquest by the Romans were not religious. The wars in the losing battle the Romans fought to save their empire were not religous. Alexander the Great's wars were not religious. Genghis Khan's wars were not religious.
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Religion does not repress violence in any way. It does not also encorage it in general, dispite what I said previously. When any religion tries to explain violence, of course it is not going to say it does nothing to stop it... at least directly... For example, morals that you are so fond of linking to religion (and from there to god), have nothing to do with it. Religion might try to supress or uphold a moral code, but that moral code is beyond religion. For example, stealing is an offense in most of those codes and yet it is not specific to any religious/non religious group.
So concluding, you cannot link the raise of violence in the world to religion or lack of it. Violence stops when all individuals reach a certain level of maturity.
Or is it? At this stage, can you truly seperate the effects of the culture and those of the religon? Can you prove that, growing up in a framework completely and utterly free of religious influence at any time its history, one would have morals as we recognize them?
The effects of religion on our culture have been profound and vast. Perhaps they did not invent morals; that is too far back into our history, and too fundemental to it for us to see clearly. But clearly religion codified them. Clearly religion taught them to the masses. Clearly religion extended their influence into the omnipresent one we know. And clearly religion provided the ultimate, end-all threat and punishment for those who would break them.
Whatever its faults, religon in general has wielded vast power, mostly for the good, down through the centuries. The actions of the many, of the Fathers, of the Imams, of Pastors, of the monks of every denomination, far outweigh the actions of the few, the Popes, Caliphs, crusaders. Every major organized religion, in the end, is about treating your fellow humans well and doing good. That is what its practioners and clergy are told to do, and far too many of them actually buy into that for religon to be considered a true evil.
