[Cold Iron]

What? Are you denying that Jerusalem was a strategic place before it was a religious place? You accuse me of simply supposing this? You ask for evidence? You think that the political origins of conflicts are a feedback from faith?

So in your reality, people simply stopped, looked at a hill they were walking past, said "God told me to build a temple here", and did. They had no other motivation for doing it? Do you even believe that they actually hallucinated a voice in their head? You clearly have no concept of what religion is. I may be a determinist but I don't need to go back to the big bang for this, I need only use the scientific method. If there is a logical explanation for an event, that is supported by the evidence ie Jerusalem was a smart place to build a temple due to geographic and geological factors, then you go with that, not an illogical explanation ie A verse in an ancient text says that God told the Israelites to build a temple at Jerusalem, so that's why they did it.

You're trying to use religion against itself, it may work when you're arguing with religious nuts who believe the bible literally, but I'm not one, and I don't, so it doesn't work with me. I have the brains to infer things and the insight to see a symbol when I read one.

I have a question for you. How do you justify blame? If you step in dogshit do you blame the shit, or the dog?

Here's another one. Do monkey's have faith? Do they have conflicts? I didn't have a very hard time showing that a fight over a banana is not because they believe the banana is magical, they're just hungry. Thanks for the cordial invitation though, I love pointing out the obvious.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

D Man;279830 said:

I disagree.

I'm talking about the motivational and compelling factors for the population at large in times of religious hegemony (follow that one through for a while!), and the scale of the individual or small group now (or indeed on larger scales, such as the taliban). Not politcal machinations. (Which I'm not at all convinced are anything but circular: youre going to have a very hard time showing that religious conflicts are purely political in origin and not a feedback from faith-based conflict in the first place. I invite you to do so).

I don't need to show any of that to show that your reasoning here is invalid: all I need to show is that it's circular, that it begs the question. When you set the condition that all violence comes from purely religious motivations, is it any wonder that you conclude that all violence comes from purely religious motivations? You're assuming that suicide bombers do what they do purely for religious beliefs, that only religious people kill one another over trivialities, and that religion is the only reason one could give to kill a doctor who performs abortions. I have called bull time and again, and I will continue to do so: there are all kinds of reasons to commit the very same acts that have nothing to do with religion--and indeed, those reasons often come into play.

My point is not and never was that religion never enters into the causal network that's at play; it's simply that it is not the only root cause of violence, generally speaking, and that even in these specific instances which you cite, it's hardly the only factor in play.

Your rhetorical "questions" (which you attempt to use to prove your point) do nothing more than beg the question. Consequently, they constitute no valid proof. It's easy to arrive at a conclusion that you assume and have set up from the beginning. There is a way to reformulate those questions in such a way that they augment your argument; at present, however, they do nothing to help it and a fair bit to harm it.

[D Man]

Cold Iron;279855 said:

What? Are you denying that Jerusalem was a strategic place before it was a religious place? You accuse me of simply supposing this? You ask for evidence? You think that the political origins of conflicts are a feedback from faith?

So in your reality, people simply stopped, looked at a hill they were walking past, said "God told me to build a temple here", and did. They had no other motivation for doing it? Do you even believe that they actually hallucinated a voice in their head? You clearly have no concept of what religion is. I may be a determinist but I don't need to go back to the big bang for this, I need only use the scientific method. If there is a logical explanation for an event, that is supported by the evidence ie Jerusalem was a smart place to build a temple due to geographic and geological factors, then you go with that, not an illogical explanation ie A verse in an ancient text says that God told the Israelites to build a temple at Jerusalem, so that's why they did it.

You're trying to use religion against itself, it may work when you're arguing with religious nuts who believe the bible literally, but I'm not one, and I don't, so it doesn't work with me. I have the brains to infer things and the insight to see a symbol when I read one.

I have a question for you. How do you justify blame? If you step in dogshit do you blame the shit, or the dog?

Here's another one. Do monkey's have faith? Do they have conflicts? I didn't have a very hard time showing that a fight over a banana is not because they believe the banana is magical, they're just hungry. Thanks for the cordial invitation though, I love pointing out the obvious.

Try again. This time remember the fact of its current strategic irrelevance ('Oh, a CASTLE? We're fucked now; guys, send the bombers, artilery and mortars back, they have a FUCKING CASTLE!!') and try and think, it seems for the first time, about what may or may not be going through the mind of the average grunt wielding an AK47 and a molotov cocktail.

1) Stupid quesiton. Predicated on your assumption of blame of underlying cause. I dont accept that AT ALL. All people are responsible for their own actions (unless its really dark, then its bad luck). But to try and brush asside for a moment the asinine rhetoric you love so, the quesiton of root cause is irrelevant to the motivations of the average joe swept up in the issue. What is of interest here is the factors that can lead to or indeed be used to motivate people violence for any end your man behind the curtain can contrive. Or as can very clearly be seen in recent history alone: can motivate a single individual to violence of his own accord, with, I might add, considerable non-violent support. Eric rudolph, for example, may have acted alone, on whatever selective reading he chose, but he was not in the least without supporters willing to back him, if not copy the crime.

2) I have not the slightest clue, personally, what monkeys think. That you presume to is frankly incredible. Theres a doctorate and a professorship in zoolology wating for you. That you reach for such absurdities is an indicator that youre seriously lacking in real-world HUMAN evidence or argument. There is, just a little, perhaps, more to our condition and motivation than our common ancestors can claim.

Your entire point is redundant.

You claim that 'politics' is a blanket root cause for human action, relying untimately on sematics and reletivism. You fail to make distictions between types of politcal action, equating with your use of the term in this context theocracy with all other systems, you fail to accomodate feedback into politics from the poluation the body 'rules', you assume that prime-movers are authoritarian and that the information and the teachings that the relevant populations are exposed to are not a factor, you formulate absurdist red-herring questions and only answer the ones put to you that you can quickly move on from.

Your argument is a sham.

[D Man]

Goaswerfraiejen;279890 said:

I don't need to show any of that to show that your reasoning here is invalid: all I need to show is that it's circular, that it begs the question. When you set the condition that all violence comes from purely religious motivations, [/B]

I never set that condition. I have said that its a ridiculous point to make (I believe my words were fucking absurd).

Why are you arguing with me with the assumption that I have a standpoint that I have explicitly denounced? Indeed, that no-one I know of has ever espoused?

[Cold Iron]

D Man;279896 said:

Try again. This time remember the fact of its current strategic irrelevance ('Oh, a CASTLE? We're fucked now; guys, send the bombers, artilery and mortars back, they have a FUCKING CASTLE!!') and try and think, it seems for the first time, about what may or may not be going through the mind of the average grunt wielding an AK47 and a molotov cocktail.

Keep up, I went through this already, whatever is going through the mind of your average grunt is irrelevant. Remember two things I've already said:
-Conscious intent can have nothing to do with actual intent
-Cultural identity can outlive it's relevance to actual things

D Man;279896 said:

1) Stupid quesiton. Predicated on your assumption of blame of underlying cause.

Assumption? It's an assumption to say that religion is caused by man? My point is that even if you don't want to assign responsibility to the person who stepped in the shit, you're still misplacing the blame on the shit instead of the dog. The shit didn't do anything. It was not a part of the decision either to be shat or to be stepped on. It is blame free. The only stupid thing about the question was that I even needed to ask it.

D Man;279896 said:

I dont accept that AT ALL. All people are responsible for their own actions (unless its really dark, then its bad luck). But to try and brush asside for a moment the asinine rhetoric you love so, the quesiton of root cause is irrelevant to the motivations of the average joe swept up in the issue.

My root cause is no more irrelevant than yours.

D Man;279896 said:

What is of interest here is the factors that can lead to or indeed be used to motivate people violence for any end your man behind the curtain can contrive.

Two different points here, and should be treated differently. If you're interested in the factors that can lead to violence then you are certainly not going to dismiss root causes, or even any possible cause and focus solely on something, like religion, that cannot in itself be a cause.

Pausing there for a moment, I think I may have put my finger on the root cause of our disagreement. You believe religion to be irrational, and thus without cause, I don't. I see all aspects of religion as having a basis in rational intent for actual outcomes. Religion cannot be a cause because whatever aspect of it you are referring to already has a cause.

To continue on the train of thought from above, if you are interested in investigating the factors that can lead to violence, and you encounter religion, this is not where you stop. You should investigate the reason for this part of the religion. If it is violent passages in a holy text then ask why these passages are there. What do they achieve. Religions on the whole are exclusionary. To define yourself as part of a group you remove yourself from all those who are not in this group. Religion did not make it so that cooperation brings about social and biological advantages. It did not decide to make the stronger group take from the weaker group.

Also, what man behind the curtain are you imagining is manipulating people to violent actions for a hidden cause? The man who wrote the holy text? The man who most profits from it? Is your theory that because religion is by default a part of whatever "us vs. them" battle that is going on at any given time or place, all those who constitute the "us" are being manipulated through religion by the leaders of the "us"? Do you imagine that without religion, humans will cease competing? Are you angry because most of what is won by the deaths and suffering of many goes to the few who reside above them in the social structure? Are you an atheist, a socialist, an anarchist or a nihilist?

D Man;279896 said:

2) I have not the slightest clue, personally, what monkeys think. That you presume to is frankly incredible. Theres a doctorate and a professorship in zoolology wating for you. That you reach for such absurdities is an indicator that youre seriously lacking in real-world HUMAN evidence or argument. There is, just a little, perhaps, more to our condition and motivation than our common ancestors can claim.

Your entire point is redundant.

Oh come now. Don't be churlish I'm not claiming to know what monkeys are thinking, nor reaching for absurdities, I'm demonstrating that there need not be a magical added factor or raison d'être for a conflict over a banana.

D Man;279896 said:

You claim that 'politics' is a blanket root cause for human action, relying untimately on sematics and reletivism. You fail to make distictions between types of politcal action, equating with your use of the term in this context theocracy with all other systems, you fail to accomodate feedback into politics from the poluation the body 'rules', you assume that prime-movers are authoritarian and that the information and the teachings that the relevant populations are exposed to are not a factor, you formulate absurdist red-herring questions and only answer the ones put to you that you can quickly move on from.

Your argument is a sham.

Nor am I claiming that politics is a blanket root cause for human actions. I addressed this above, religion is not a cause because it has it's own causes. That you ignore them or are oblivious to them does not change this. I fail to do any of the things you expect me to do because you fail to understand why I needn't bother.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

D Man;279898 said:

I never set that condition. I have said that its a ridiculous point to make (I believe my words were fucking absurd).

Why are you arguing with me with the assumption that I have a standpoint that I have explicitly denounced? Indeed, that no-one I know of has ever espoused?

Allow me to clarify, then, to stave off future frustration. The quote to which you refer is the following:

Quote

I do not believe, and have not at any point said, that all religious believers are violent if their text contains violence. The thought never crossed my mind, because its fucking absurd. Like I said, I know a lot of religious people, and the only example of a religiously motivated action by one of them that I cited was a good thing by anyones measure. I'm very suprised that anyone thought thats what I said.

The questions that you pose assume that religion is the only cause of violence, whereas what you said above was that not all religious people are violent. Two entirely different statements, and not at all self-contradictory. It's perfectly legitimate to hold both simultaneously.


What I don't think is legitimate is your argument that religion is either the sole cause of violence, or the trump card when it comes to violence. If you do not wish to say that, then I suggest that you either revise those "questions" a great deal or abandon them altogether, because even when I'm thinking along generous lines, that's what I find to be implicitly implied in each and every one of them.

If you want, we can examine those questions more closely:

Quote

would a suicide bomber still do it if he believed the same scripture but throught he would go to hell, not heaven (a special tier of it reserved for martyrs, no less!!!).

You're ignoring the fact that a number of suicide bombers belong to faiths (such as Christianity) where these actions condemn them to either Hell or Purgatory, depending on which denomination we're looking at. This question is not as guilty of my above accusations as the others, since it posits a religious counterpoint as the other alternative. What it is guilty of, however, is being short-sighted, and assuming that vague promises of "heaven" are capable of motivating such drastic actions alone. Sometimes, maybe. In all cases? Doubtful. Other faiths struggle with getting their congregations to comply, despite similar (or better) promises.

Quote

Would any non-religious person kill someone (or plot to or try to) for drawing a picture?

Guilty as charged on this count, I'm afraid. To paraphrase, "only religious people are willing to kill over trivialities"--which is blatantly false. Besides, you're calling up an event in history which was hardly purely religiously-motivated.

Quote

Would a non-religious person kill doctors to save embryos?

Again, you've built circularity into the question by stipulating "would anyone not like this do the same thing for the same reasons". Besides, as a hypothetical, it fails for one simple reason: any crackpot could give any reason at all for killing someone. Not to mention that it would be easy enough to arrive at the conclusion that abortion-performing (or stem cell-researching) doctors must be rubbed out on purely moral grounds--and morality has no necessary tie to religion, so we're not at all justified to bring religion into the equation in this way.



I hope that makes more sense.

[D Man]

My my you two are getting yourselves into a spin. An armchair sociologist electrician and a philosopher use only words and logical houses of cards and no evidence and start tripping over their own rhetorical devices. Theres a suprise.

I'm only going to briefly address what you've each said, because this is going in circles and I'm getting bored.

CI: Youre also assuming that one result may only have one cause. Youre wrong. Think about it, and why youre entire most recent post falls apart without that (and since were all just repeating ourselves in successively more oblique and obfuscating ways, so does everything youve said). Youre wrong for other reasons that I’ll get to later too.

Goas: Yes, I am saying that religions propensity to leap to violence exceeds in rapidity and extremity humanism and atheism. That was my original statement, in a nutshell, that’s the comparison that’s implicit in me including “Non-religious” in my questions, and thats STILL not what youre arguing with.

OK, lets reboot a little bit.

I forward the explanation for the religious violence we see as, self evidently, the sickeningly xenophobobic and sexist violence in the texts of the scriptures. Apparently the connection isnt quite clear enough for either of you between the nature of the violence and the content of the scriptures. So I'll clarify.

Since the experimental proof for my position I posted only served to illustrate your abilities to pick and choose evidence and dance around entire paragraphs of both clear english and clear numbers, lets try history and current events, and also a crucial aspect of religion that I think I've assumed you would be aware of, but going through this exchange again, I dont think you are. Its something that seperates it fundametally from considerations of political domination, resource aquisition and historic root cause. I'll get round to it in a bit.

In case youre in any doubt as to the violent content of the two principle religions here are some quotations. Rest assured the sections are not taken out of any pacifying greater context. They are divine mandates. You can check them yourselves.

"13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
13:4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
13:5 And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn [you] away from the LORD your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the LORD thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
13:6 If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;
13:7 [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth;
13:8 Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
13:9 But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.
13:10 And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
13:11 And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.
13:12 If thou shalt hear [say] in one of thy cities, which the LORD thy God hath given thee to dwell there, saying,
13:13 [Certain] men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which ye have not known;
13:14 Then shalt thou inquire, and make search, and ask diligently; and, behold, [if it be] truth, [and] the thing certain, [that] such abomination is wrought among you;
13:15 Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that [is] therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.
13:16 And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.
13:17 And there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and show thee mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath sworn unto thy fathers;
13:18 When thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all his commandments which I command thee this day, to do [that which is] right in the eyes of the LORD thy God. "

Deuteronomy 13:1-8.

"Prophet, make war on the unbelievers and hypocrites, and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home: an evil fate"

Koran 9:73

"Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them. Know that God is with the rightious"

Koran 9:123

“The believers who stay at home -- apart from those that suffer from a grave
impediment -- are not the equal of those who fight for the cause of God with their
goods and their persons. God has given those that fight with their goods and their
persons a higher rank than those who stay at home. God has promised all a good
reward; but far richer is the recompense of those who fight for Him.... He that leaves
his dwelling to fight for God and His apostle and is then overtaken by death, shall be
rewarded by God....The unbelievers are your inveterate enemies.”

Koran 4:95-101

Now, CI, youre fundamentally wrong about your belief that religious wars are political ones because you've ignored, or dont realise, a fundamental aspect of politics. Its circumstance. It innately allows actions to adapt to the environment and for the environment, history and beliefs to inform it, as best the leaders or people of the time (depending on the political system) can. It’s a set of large-scale, big-consequence decisions made based on the values and interests of the leaders and/or people, and simply bandying around "Politics" doesnt take this into account. Nor, for this reason, can ‘politics’ be said to be a base cause: it by definition is not, because though political decisions have their consequences, they are caused more fundamentally by the values of the people in politics (and the people at large, in theory, in a representative republic or democracy). The above are not political statements. They are instructions from god to make war with people not of the same faith as you. They are beliefs that dont have conditions of circumstance or expiry dates. They and many other aspects of religion (good and bad) inform the politics of those that believe them. They inform the politics of the taliban, they informed the politics of medieval catholics, they inform the politics of Israel, the US, Iran and so on, because the texts that those passages are taken from lie at the centre of what the policy-makers believe. In theocratic nations the religion underlies the politics, not the other way around.

Now, part as extention to this point, but one that can clearly stand on its own, that little detail that I thought you knew, and you probably do, but it doesnt seem to be impinging on your throught processes: indoctrination. Religious instruction and supernatural beliefs that change the way people act and treat one another (for good or not) are imprinted on children from the moment they can understand the language (of not truly understand the ideas: crucially that they don’t understand the allegory and symbolism of much of it: God, Allah, Mohammed, Hell, Heaven, the garden of Eden are literal truths to a child). I'm not going to take pains to prove this. You try to disprove it if you wish, or think you can. I'm just going to point out the facts that only 1 in 12 children born into a religious household in the US change their religion, and the blitheringly obvious facts that the place you are raised in is a huge factor in your inheritance of beliefs (note the geographical distribution of religions) and that adults take this stuff literally. (Some turn to religion in adulthood, of course, and that isn’t indoctrination, but a rather complex psychological process of attrition, emotional strain, dissatisfaction (induced or otherwise) with current beliefs, promise of improvement of life and emotional well-being by adoption of the new beliefs, while juxtaposing with the cosequences of not adopting the new beliefs, leading to the person believing whatever they have to by whatever means of rationale and cognitive bias to maintain emotional well-being based on a crutch of religion. Its another story, really, though a very interesting one)

Indoctrination is another aspect of religious belief that trancends politics and circumstance. You learn as an infant the prime aspects of your parents religion: Gods perfection and divine authority and love, heaven as a reward for a pious life and hell as a punishment for beliefs and actions forbidden. Some of these people then become the next generation of politicians, lawyers, judges and generals. Thus we get institutions like the taliban: politcal systems based one particular faith, and I dont think I need to, or I hope I dont need to, tell you what kind of politics they practiced?

Heres a video for you. I'm not saying its the rule. I am saying it does happen, and challenge you to find an equivilent system of indoctrination outside religion.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=c94b1_dx9Q8

You'll also get some reminders from it of how belief, of both leaders and people, feeds into politics. Single cause:single effect, indeed

There is no analogue of this process in any other field of human activity or belief. You learn a lot when youre a child, and you learn various moral tenets, but they all serve as springboards for a more adult, grey morality whereby we use those values to inform decisions where interests and circumstances are complicated, to try to bring about the best result. There is nothing else so thoroughly engrained that is so inflexible and dogmatic. Also it is the only field of morality or social structuring that is predicated on supernatural authority, the trancendance of that supernatural law over human law and punishment and reward after death.

Add to this a sufficient number of people selectively, marginally, whatever you want to call it, reading the most vile and barbaric aspects of bronze and dark age social and political practices, and you get religious violence.

I say again, there is no analogue for this outside religion. All else is subject to revision and criticism. Not divine authority in the eyes of believers. And the capacity for religion to (potentially, not always) be informed by the values of millennia ago allow a potential for savagery that is frankly breathtaking

I’ll give you some recent examples.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8...1687755,00.html

http://en.wikipedia..../Salman_Rushdie

I’m sure you can find your own easily enough. Just watch the news.

Edit: Oh, and CI, I'm well aware that religion must have an explanation. It exists after all. I have my ideas, but they arent well fleshed out or verified so I wont say anything. Suffice to say you have to look further back that politically organised societies. It is you I think that doesnt understand the subjective reality of the irrational beliefs to a religious person.

Edit 2: no, in the above section I dont mean to say that the US is a theocracy. It almost looks that way, and if youre so inclined you could believe thats what I meant and make a strawman out of it. It would be a trivial diversion, but I wouldnt be suprised. I mean that religious opinion in the US informs policy on stem cell research, gay marraige, abortion and so on, rather than the other way around or political decisions being made based purely on real-world considerations. They are built from the values of the people, and the values of the people are built from religious teachings (in great part in the western world) which are in turn based on the values of people at the time of the writing of the scriptures in question.

What I'm esentially talking about through all this is the inheritance (by various means) of ancient beliefs and practices that are underpinned by supernatural supreme authority and the consequences in the afterlife for actions here. Among the practices are extremely violent punishments (as the various violent actions seem, as far as I can tell, to be viewed in the religious extremists eyes). There are plenty of others, but thats the crux of this line of debate.

[Shinrei]

Ok, this debate seems really interesting but I came to it late and except for the last 2 pages skimmed most of the earlier stuff.

After that big post Dman...can you please remind me of what your fundamental point is meant to be? I read that big post 3 times and I just got confused as to what you're trying to prove.

Are you arguing about the nature of religious violence? Or that there is more violence because of religion? Or something else?

[D Man]

That the nature of religion as a whole and the content of the scriptures of some of them can encourage or facilitate violence from the believers.

That the extremity of violence they will go to can be (nearly always is, IMO) extremely disproportionate to the original afront.

That the sources of the afronts can be and supernatural in nature. (Thus a belief in a supernatural thing leads to real life deaths).

That no non-believer, i.e. someone who believes no gods or scriptures, has no religion, would ever be compelled to such extremes of violence by virtue of their non-belief.

Edited to correct an accidental double negative.

P.S. I hope its clearer to you now. Welcome to the fun

[Cold Iron]

D Man;280317 said:

My my you two are getting yourselves into a spin. An armchair sociologist electrician and a philosopher use only words and logical houses of cards and no evidence and start tripping over their own rhetorical devices. Theres a suprise.

You've gone ad hominem now too? Surely as an atheist this argument isn't hurting you. Leave the sulking out of it please.

D Man;280317 said:

I'm only going to briefly address what you've each said, because this is going in circles and I'm getting bored.

Way to be brief.

D Man;280317 said:

CI: Youre also assuming that one result may only have one cause. Youre wrong. Think about it, and why youre entire most recent post falls apart without that (and since were all just repeating ourselves in successively more oblique and obfuscating ways, so does everything youve said). Youre wrong for other reasons that I’ll get to later too.

You are the one attributing everything to a single cause, not me. My argument is precisely the opposite. I'll repeat it for you: religion itself has many causes and thus blaming it and it alone for violence or anything else is facile, invalid, incorrect, short-sighted, misleading and potentially damaging.

D Man;280317 said:

Now, CI, youre fundamentally wrong about your belief that religious wars are political ones because you've ignored, or dont realise, a fundamental aspect of politics. Its circumstance. It innately allows actions to adapt to the environment and for the environment, history and beliefs to inform it, as best the leaders or people of the time (depending on the political system) can. It’s a set of large-scale, big-consequence decisions made based on the values and interests of the leaders and/or people, and simply bandying around "Politics" doesnt take this into account. Nor, for this reason, can ‘politics’ be said to be a base cause: it by definition is not, because though political decisions have their consequences, they are caused more fundamentally by the values of the people in politics (and the people at large, in theory, in a representative republic or democracy).

Well that was a long-winded way of totally missing my point. All of that paragraph was right and fine, but you're not taking into account that the beliefs have roots in reality, in real-world effects and causes, and they don't come about spontaneously. If you continue to develop your argument without addressing mine we won't get anywhere. I'm agreeing with you ok. You're right. Politics are shaped by the society and the beliefs of the people. All ok. Now lets move on to the next step, beliefs of the people are real and have real world causes and consequences.

D Man;280317 said:

The above are not political statements. They are instructions from god to make war with people not of the same faith as you.

Unless you yourself believe this, you are building something of a straw man (although not misrepresenting me, you are misrepresenting the subject). I have also addressed this and repeated it, and will again, conscious intent can have nothing to do with actual intent. Even if our subject fully believes his actions are for god does not mean they really are, or that he would not have acted in the same way were he not to believe in god or have ever heard of religion of any kind. Making war with people not of the same faith as you has other benefits than going to heaven. Taking their shit, for example. This means that without the excuse of god, the person may well still make the war, to take the shit. In fact, there is no logical, scientific or fact based reason why religion would have arisen in society without these real tangible motivations. Nobody just decided to make up heaven for no reason.

D Man;280317 said:

They are beliefs that dont have conditions of circumstance or expiry dates.

PRECISELY! This makes them completely interpretable and subject to whatever political machinations that are currently in vogue. If they were to have conditions of circumstance or expiry dates it would help you to show that the believers/perpetrators had no ulterior motive.

D Man;280317 said:

They and many other aspects of religion (good and bad) inform the politics of those that believe them. They inform the politics of the taliban, they informed the politics of medieval catholics, they inform the politics of Israel, the US, Iran and so on, because the texts that those passages are taken from lie at the centre of what the policy-makers believe. In theocratic nations the religion underlies the politics, not the other way around.

Yes. Because the people who believe them have faith that the real world consequences of their belief will be in their interests. Even if they think it is an otherworldly benefit, if they accidentally happen to get a benefit in this life, well they'll take that and thank god.

Whether or not they have ever questioned the validity of their beliefs, the idea that the beliefs originated out of thin air is clearly insubstantial. And the indoctrination of children is based on the same principles. It would not have caught on for nothing.

You admit it yourself:

D Man;280317 said:

Edit: Oh, and CI, I'm well aware that religion must have an explanation. It exists after all. I have my ideas, but they arent well fleshed out or verified so I wont say anything. Suffice to say you have to look further back that politically organised societies. It is you I think that doesnt understand the subjective reality of the irrational beliefs to a religious person.

May I remind you that I never said anything about politically organised societies, or even politics at all. Real world, tangible effects and causes is all I'm arguing. Nothing insubstantial, nothing without an actual benefit even if not consciously sought after.

[Cold Iron]

D Man;280467 said:

That the nature of humans as a whole and the content of the cultures of some of them can encourage or facilitate violence from the believers.

That the extremity of violence they will go to can be (nearly always is, IMO) extremely disproportionate to the original afront.

That the sources of the afronts can not be supernatural in nature. (Thus a belief in a supernatural thing leads to real life deaths for real life reasons).

That no non-believer, i.e. someone who believes no gods or scriptures, has no religion, would ever be compelled to such extremes of violence by virtue of their non-belief. But thankfully no person can live in a state of complete non-belief.

Fixed

[D Man]

Cold Iron;280518 said:

You've gone ad hominem now too? Surely as an atheist this argument isn't hurting you. Leave the sulking out of it please.


Way to be brief.


You are the one attributing everything to a single cause, not me. My argument is precisely the opposite. I'll repeat it for you: religion itself has many causes and thus blaming it and it alone for violence or anything else is facile, invalid, incorrect, short-sighted, misleading and potentially damaging.

Ok, the rest is so much dancing and arse covering, so:

A: It was meant as wry teasing (for want of a better term). Text communication is notorious for allowing the reader to impose their own perceptions of tone that dont match the writers. A shame, really. So many dimensions of communication suddenly become mires of the projections of the reader

B: The breif section was the direct responses. The rest is divergence.

C: I'm going to say is this, for I think the 4th and certainly the last time now.

I have never said that religion is the sole cause of violence.

I've dismissed such absurdities repeatedly and yet you STILL try to tell me that thats what I'm saying.

I

AM

NOT.

And you say that I'm making strawmen. Wow.

The rest is just you repeating things I've already addressed. To recap briefly: I dont care about the cause. I care about the dragging medieval and bronze age divinely mandated violence into modern times.

[D Man]

Cold Iron;280525 said:

Fixed

Of course you can.

Youre playing a semantics game now.

[Nequam]

I'm not trying to end anyone's fun or anything, because I have enjoyed reading this debate since I left it; but why is this still being argued? I stopped a while ago because I was wanting to argue a different (kinda) thing. But how is it possible to deny that religion can, and often does, seem to incite violence. Although I do not think D Man should have said "the nature of religion as a whole" because as a whole religion doe not encourage violence at all. As a whole, that is. (for the record I agree with D Man on most of what he says, and I am a fairly religious person) But just look at history and the present, and the freakin' verses he gave us!! I just do not see how someone can honestly say religion doesn't help cause at least some of the violence in this world.
Sure that comparison between religion and dog crap was cute (I could take offense to that y'know ) but come on. Religion is not something that just lays on the ground for someone to accidentily step on. It helps dictate how a person acts, helps make the a person who he is.
You say that you shouldn't blame the religion for the attacks, but the person, or society right? Well what helped create that person or society huh? Religion.

[Cold Iron]

D Man;280575 said:

Ok, the rest is so much dancing and arse covering, so:

A: It was meant as wry teasing (for want of a better term). Text communication is notorious for allowing the reader to impose their own perceptions of tone that dont match the writers. A shame, really. So many dimensions of communication suddenly become mires of the projections of the reader

Cheeky bugger

D Man;280575 said:

B: The breif section was the direct responses. The rest is divergence.

C: I'm going to say is this, for I think the 4th and certainly the last time now.

I have never said that religion is the sole cause of violence.

I've dismissed such absurdities repeatedly and yet you STILL try to tell me that thats what I'm saying.

I

AM

NOT.

And you say that I'm making strawmen. Wow.

The rest is just you repeating things I've already addressed. To recap briefly: I dont care about the cause. I care about the dragging medieval and bronze age divinely mandated violence into modern times.

Good so we agree that you can't blame violence on religion.

So if you don't mind, I'll now attack the new location of the goalposts (I can be cheeky too). What exactly is your problem with violent scripture? Do you believe it should be stricken from the record, like the lawyer of scripture you shout a hearty "I object!" and poof? This is undeniably a part of our heritage and people have a right to read about it, objectionable though it may be.

Devastating though acts of violence are, do we really gain anything by either denying them or trying to remove knowledge or reference to them? Would we gain anything from removing violence from the media? Your point is valid that religion can be a more powerful influence than pretty much anything else but well what about number 2? Once we have removed number 1, will the new number 1 be the target of your objection? Where do you draw the line? Where do you start to trust in humanity, trust the world, trust that things are right that the world is good and that our lives are as they should be? ETA: Ok, I don't really like this on a reread, obviously the world is full of injustice but my point is, why are you blaming the straw man? Why are you deflecting your anger to a social abstract like religion? What's to gain by doing that? Who is going to fix it? Who are you complaining to? Blame a real cause, blame social inequality or rights abuse or exploitation. Blame something that is real not just because it might be something you can actually fix but also because it actually might be something that is responsible. Religion is not responsible for anything, I've said why enough times by now.

ETA:

Nequam;280590 said:

I'm not trying to end anyone's fun or anything, because I have enjoyed reading this debate since I left it; but why is this still being argued? I stopped a while ago because I was wanting to argue a different (kinda) thing. But how is it possible to deny that religion can, and often does, seem to incite violence. Although I do not think D Man should have said "the nature of religion as a whole" because as a whole religion doe not encourage violence at all. As a whole, that is. (for the record I agree with D Man on most of what he says, and I am a fairly religious person) But just look at history and the present, and the freakin' verses he gave us!! I just do not see how someone can honestly say religion doesn't help cause at least some of the violence in this world.
Sure that comparison between religion and dog crap was cute (I could take offense to that y'know ) but come on. Religion is not something that just lays on the ground for someone to accidentily step on. It helps dictate how a person acts, helps make the a person who he is.
You say that you shouldn't blame the religion for the attacks, but the person, or society right? Well what helped create that person or society huh? Religion.

No, that's my point, the society shaped the religion, the religion is a passive abstract, it can't do anything.

ETA2: In much the same way that D Man (rightly) said (i think it was him) that evolution doesn't do anything. (I can't find the reference, so I may be wrong, it exactl wording, but you know what I mean)

[Nequam]

I don't know if it's right to say society shaped the religion. In the major monotheistic religions (christiany, and Judaism mainly) it seems that they just spread into already existing societies...eventually changing them. Of course there are religions made shaped a certain way because of the culture, but for the most part no, society did not shape the religion. The religion shaped the society.

I would say more but I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

[Cold Iron]

Nequam;280611 said:

I don't know if it's right to say society shaped the religion. In the major monotheistic religions (christiany, and Judaism mainly) it seems that they just spread into already existing societies...eventually changing them. Of course there are religions made shaped a certain way because of the culture, but for the most part no, society did not shape the religion. The religion shaped the society.

I would say more but I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

:Erm: What? The spread of any particular religion is not because the religion decided to be spread, it's because the society spread it. I really think you need to rethink this.

[D Man]

Cold Iron;280602 said:

Cheeky bugger



Good so we agree that you can't blame violence on religion.

So if you don't mind, I'll now attack the new location of the goalposts (I can be cheeky too). What exactly is your problem with violent scripture? Do you believe it should be stricken from the record, like the lawyer of scripture you shout a hearty "I object!" and poof? This is undeniably a part of our heritage and people have a right to read about it, objectionable though it may be.

Devastating though acts of violence are, do we really gain anything by either denying them or trying to remove knowledge or reference to them? Would we gain anything from removing violence from the media? Your point is valid that religion can be a more powerful influence than pretty much anything else but well what about number 2? Once we have removed number 1, will the new number 1 be the target of your objection? Where do you draw the line? Where do you start to trust in humanity, trust the world, trust that things are right that the world is good and that our lives are as they should be? ETA: Ok, I don't really like this on a reread, obviously the world is full of injustice but my point is, why are you blaming the straw man? Why are you deflecting your anger to a social abstract like religion? What's to gain by doing that? Who is going to fix it? Who are you complaining to? Blame a real cause, blame social inequality or rights abuse or exploitation. Blame something that is real not just because it might be something you can actually fix but also because it actually might be something that is responsible. Religion is not responsible for anything, I've said why enough times by now.

ETA:

No, that's my point, the society shaped the religion, the religion is a passive abstract, it can't do anything.

ETA2: In much the same way that D Man (rightly) said (i think it was him) that evolution doesn't do anything. (I can't find the reference, so I may be wrong, it exactl wording, but you know what I mean)

Youre still arguing with a strawman.

I said that religion is A cause of violence

And I said that religion can compel people to acts of violence that are excessive in response to infractions against the religion that nothing else does

and that atheism in and of itself does not provide such a motivation.

You still arent addressing these points.

Plus, your "Its in the religion to go conquer in order to take their shit" doesnt hold up, because the koran verses talk only of eradicating other beliefs, not of taking land, or even that the infidels have to have their own land. They could be passers by through the neighbourhood. And the deuteronomy verse clearly states that you should utterly destroy everything that the heathens had, and cleave from it not.

Theres no reason to do either of these to this extent other than to maintain religious purity.

[D Man]

Cold Iron;280525 said:

Fixed

Oh, adn I was sleepy when I first saw this. I missed most of the 'adjustments'.

First off, dont do that please, its rude. (and really weak to butcher someone elses words to make your point).

Second, youre still missing the subjective reality of the supernatural aspects of religion to the religious. You and I agree, they are not real. But they are to (tautologically enough: the clue is in the name, you see) the believers.

[D Man]

Oh, Neq, by 'nature of religion as a whole' I dont mean by that that its entirely violent. I mean how it functions: an authoritarian system that pnuishes unbelief, rewards belief and tends to be imprinted in subsequent generations as literal truth at a very early age.

Also that relgion as a whole contains moral and behavioural instruction (which is enforced with divine authority and post-death divine justice).

THEN the subsequent parts of the sentence were supposed to deliniate between religions that contain violent instruction and dont (some dont) and then further between those that follow it and dont.