Religious Wars Are the Worst Wars - (and the most common)

[MineralMan]

The Middle East did not just get into a war. It has been at war for millennia. Literally. The wars there, which are largely based on religious differences, have gone on since Old Testament times and even earlier, most likely. They are nothing new.

The USA has been a nation for 250 years, exactly. We have no business taking part in religious wars half a planet away from us. Hell, we fight our own religious wars in the West, stupidly based on differences between different sects of Christianity. Religion is the most divisive thing humans do, really. We have beliefs. Others have slightly different beliefs. So, because we believe so deeply, we often try to kill people who believe slightly differently.

It makes no logical sense, but there is no logic in religion.

For our country to attempt to get involved in a millennia-old religious war is beyond being a waste of time. We claim in our Constitution to be a nation where anyone may have any religious beliefs or none at all. We are a secular nation, clearly defined as such in our founding documents. When we meddle with religious wars elsewhere, we stick our noses in where they don't belong. We become the enemy and, in so doing, stir up religious animosities even in our own nation.

It is the height of stupidity. We should stop doing that. We should never have started doing that.

Religious wars suck. They have killed more people than any other type of conflict. We should never participate in them.

[dalton99a]

1. The two religions that came from the Middle East - and their variants - have caused a lot of deaths and suffering

[MineralMan]

3. Indeed they have.

And yet, they apparently have the same deity. Isn't that interesting? If you add Judaism to Christianity and Islam, that's three major religions with the same deity duking it out. MAKES NO SENSE!

[dalton99a]

7. You don't see a lot of fighting among people worshipping rocks or doorknobs

[MineralMan]

8. True. But, there were many battles between

various polytheistic religions. Look at the Greek and Roman religions.

Humans apparently are not a peaceful species.

[haele]

20. Polytheists tend to fight primarily for resources and land.

They don't fight to impose their many gods on other folks with many gods.
Now, there are "civil wars" within polytheistic civilizations where one god representative hates another god representative and they start politically slap fighting each other - " MyGod is Batman and Your God is The Joker "...
That's politics and social power in play. The winner shows which God/Goddess should be in charge of the region.

However, there's a special sort of evil that occurs when one priest or "prophet" declares a fellow religionist a blasphemer or heretic.
That's a matter of enforcing a total destruction of any deviation to the hierarchy.
Even within some forms of general mono-philosophy - as in Buddhism, there can be mortal opposition in some earlier cultural practice inclusion or "flavor" of belief

[TBF]

2. If only it were that easy -

the problem is that we're not involved because they are religious wars.

Typically, we're involved in war in order to protect "our interests" (read: commodities), and in some cases as a distraction to things going on at home. Should we get out of there? Absolutely, but it won't happen. Because wars are not only helpful as distraction, and in securing resources, but they are also tremendously profitable for certain industries.

[MineralMan]

5. If it were easy, we'd already be out of there.

Clearly, it is not.'

Simple, but not easy.

[TBF]

13. Yes, agree.

And ultimately, I do agree with you - we need to get out of there. We've got enough problems to fix here without spending billions of taxpayer monies over there.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. It's in our DNA

Early settlers fled persecution. Separatists, Puritans, Dissenters, Quakers, English, German. Massachusetts to Great Lakes, many early farmers were German. They fled the European 30 Years War which was, you guessed it, a religious war.

It could be argued that indigenous people's fought religious wars, so many differences among them.

Social groups, communities develop belief systems. Vikings, Celts. Give them 100 years and they'll have religious leaders, monuments, rituals, solstice festivals.

Yes the Enlightenment was supposed to end conflict with rational and peaceful resolution to differences. But here we are.

[MineralMan]

6. That is true in many ways.

We are territorial mammals, we humans. And that's the beginning of conflict.

[Arthur_Frain]

9. All that I can think of is

I was watching World Cup coverage within the last decade, so I tuned into related clips on YouTube when they looked interesting. There was this one.

An Arab shopkeeper was being almost comically over the top with his pre sale patter, obsequious, obliging, opulent. The patrons who were the object of this were responding in kind. Then somehow it came out that the patrons were Israeli. The shopkeeper was on the video when this took place, and it was crazy how the change was immediate. Man in an iron mask.

And I thought to myself, can you undo that kind of hatred? We may come out of the womb hate free, but some cultures perpetuate it beginning in the crèche. What tsf and his enablers have done is to ensure that a few rounds of anti American retribution are going to now be headed our way, where they weren’t before. I’m glad I travelled when I was younger, he’s made Americans abroad an enticing target now.

[Ocelot II]

10. I agree as to the basic premise that we shouldn't get involved, but religious wars aren't really religious wars,

at least in modern times. Religion is used in most cases to justify wars that are really for territory and power. The 30-Years War in Europe, one of the most destructive wars before the 20th century, was ostensibly about Catholic vs. Protestant doctrine but it was really about imperial authority over the dividing up of the former Holy Roman Empire. It was basically a bunch of kings fighting over territory backed up by their respective religious affiliations. Same with The Troubles in Northern Ireland - really about the extent of British control. The mess in the Middle East obviously has ancient religious causes, but the current situation originated in the mid-20th century following the establishment of Israel as a country, the displacement of Palestinians, the US involvement in the overthrow of Iran's government and restoration of the Shah followed by the 1979 revolution, the rise of the PLO, wars between Israel and Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, the creation of Hamas and Hezbollah, etc., etc. These are territorial wars with religious affiliation, but if everybody suddenly turned atheist the conflicts would likely continue in some fashion. Iran in particular is governed by religious fanatics more than most other places, but the motivation is always power and control.

[MineralMan]

11. You're right, too.

Both religion and territoriality are deeply imbedded in us. It's easy to find it difficult to differentiate. (how's that for a sentence?)

[walkingman]

12. I wish we would simply stop the idea that we have to be #1 in the world. I wish we would focus

on making the lives of the American people as affordable as possible, put our tax dollars toward keeping our air and water as clean as possible, make education our top priority, and do everything possible to convert to a more sustainable way of energy production. Fund the military at a level that provides protection against adversaries and move toward removing the nuclear threat.

I would love to live in a more secular world. I consider religions to be the destroyers of humanity. They are the primary reason we are not better than this.

Create the kind of world we want to live in....why not?

[gulliver]

14. Sometimes the "religious" aren't peaceful

There's a lot right about the peaceful, tolerant, moderate religions. But if any subgroups, regardless of religion, are theocratic, patriarchal, homophobic, racist, bigoted against non-adherents, violent, etc., that's where the line must be drawn. We don't choose to be against them; they make us be against them. They create the religious war from their side.

When we say people should be able to choose their religion, we don't mean that as a loophole to allow them to choose a behavior set that ruins the lives of people in other religions or the non-religious. In other words there is a hard rule that all religions and non-religions must follow. Live and let live. Unfortunately, that rule must sometimes be enforced. Otherwise, any intolerant, wide-eyed yahoo group could just run amok and screw up everybody's life.

[get the red out]

16. I agree!

I have watched the far right Christian groupd get a pass for wretched things like beating their kids, kicking their underage LGBTQ kids to the streets or damaging them psychologically, teaching girls they have no rights..society said that we have to respect religion (over human rights). Even giving them TV shows to broadcast their sickness.

Religion was probably helpful in the Neolithic for community but it seems to have dehumanized people to one another for a very long time.

[BlueTsunami2018]

15. We're not in a religious war, we're in an imperialist war.

Those are the only kind of wars we fight in.

[Ocelot II]

18. A lot of wars are, even when religion is the excuse.

[BlueTsunami2018]

19. Indeed.

They’re always couched in some bullshit like “liberation” or “prevention” when it all it really means is the capitalists want to exploit the “enemy’s” resources and people.

I’m so tired of all this and it’s so hard to get people to understand what’s happening to us.

[Initech]

17. One of the most horrible things this wretched administration does...

Is their constant pandering to Christian megachurch bullshit. People like Armageddon Pete are the reason why we have separation of church and state in this country. They have gone absolutely mad with power. Fuck all megachurches.

[Skittles]

21. they are all based on delusions

fucking sickening