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Originally posted by denim
It's not my problem whether the people doing it were being "christian" or not. They did it; they blamed/credited it on/to their religion. I agree they weren't being good Christians, but that's irrelevant. They did it to people not in their own brand of Christianity, let alone non-Christians. It was religious, whether the people doing it were honest about it or not. Truth. Deal with it.
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Well then, this leads us into the question of whether something
is due to its nominal attatchments or is independent of them. Now take this example. The KKK were group which operated on the basis of 'race'. Now, unfortunately for Bubba & co., 'race' is quite simply a biological myth. Now, I'm not saying they didn't think that racial distinctions were very real, and performed very real actions based on this gigantic misconception. However, in the sense I am arguing, what they did had nothing to do with 'race' itself, since it does not exist, what they were doing represents in the specific a mistaken view about the existence of the mythical quality of race, and in a more general sense ignorance and stupidity. Now, the only difference between this example, in the way I am arguing, and the issue of 'religious' conflicts, is that I'm saying yes religion does very much exist, but that these people are subscribing to a mythical form that doesn't, and thus represent not the religion itself but the misinterpretation, manipulation and misapplication of a real religion. So we ought not really be arguing, all I am saying is they aren't fighting over a true religion and this means its not religious according to my reasoning, you on the other hand are saying that the imagined religious status of these people makes it religious so it is. Either way we're not really disagreeing with each other except in the most superficial way.
For the record, I maintain that racial issues still have a very real existence as a psychological phenomena, moreover as the socio-political repercussions of the widely held belief in the myth.
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That done under the color of a religion is religious, whether it's done by doctrine or not.
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Well that's one way of looking at it.
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Oh, I'm hurt! Don't let the fact that I'm not going into detail prevent you from doing so, sir! I'm aware that we're glossing over a God-awful amount, but that doesn't change the fact that these religions are involved.
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No but what does prevent me is time and energy both of which I have very little at the moment. I applaud your recognition of the complexities however.
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It's the system under which the arabs as a group live. It spreads like many memes. It's family and shame-based. They'd say it's shame/honor based, but I say they are clueless about honor, so I'm saying it as I see it.
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Well then I must ask you, what is the true nature of 'honour' then? Your mention of memes leads me to believe you have at least some familiarity with evoltionary theories of history, surely then you would agree that cultural values can only be really avaluated within the physical and social context in which they occur.
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Probably true, but I won't commit myself on that. Historians, economists, and archeologists each have at least one opinion about everything, rarely agreeing with others in their field. There is usually another way to understand a given thing.
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Well you kind of agreed with slimpiggy that they are 'going backwards' or at the very least 'failed to keep up'. This is less about the variety of approaches adopted by various diciplines, for I would contend with you that almost ANY academic with ANY familiarity with historical, sociological or anthropological theory would condemn and reject social Darwinism vehemently.
By the way, yes agreed a good deal of anything translated loses something in translation, something I wish Christians, the only revealed religion which studies their holy texts in translation.