Systems of religious belief help humans to kill each other.
 

People who "believe" in a higher power are the ones who find it easiest to kill others, especially in the sense of war. A structured belief in the supernatural has also caused many religious people to kill others when they think some one else is "evil" in spite of the fact that there is a general lack evidence. Our ability to dehumanize each other using common religious texts is a flaw of the religions themselves (as indicated in their scriptures).

For this debate I am only using Christianity and Islam to make my point. There are thousands of religions, many of which are peaceful (and even more which have justified killing others in the course of their history).

*Evidence to support my point:

Sept 11 2001 - World trade centre was bombed by Islamic Fundamentalists who believe that USA is in league with the devil.

Salem Witch Trials - Christians Kill alleged Witches in USA (no need to explain)

Nazi Germany - 1936 - 1945 The ruling Nazi party (religion?) exterminated 12 million people in the name of Aryan Supremacy(religion!) and the perception of a threat against their motherland. Millions of Jews were exterminated after being deemed "less than human".

Iraq/Kuwait - 1990's Thousands were killed when Saddam Hussein sent troops into Kuwait to take back land that was believed to be Iraqi territory as promised by God. (This one is open to debate; it is Saddam's beliefs that are in question here not ours)

Israel – The ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelites, who both believe that they have a right to the holy land and have defended it. While the Israelites support the concept that Palestinians have a right to access to the holy areas, the Palestinians generally do not support the concept that Israel as a nation, has the right to exist. Both sides have dirty hands.

A few Bible verses that support the killing of unbelievers: Deuteronomy Chapter 3 - Kill all unbelievers (even your children if necessary), Psalm 110, Numbers 16:32-35, Acts 5:29, Psalm 58:10. There are many that I haven't listed here!

Note: There are many New Testament scriptures that, if taken out of context can be used to justify killing. It is not fair to use these to make my point. BUT it is important to note that they have been taken out of context and HAVE been used to justify killing in Jesus name during the Spanish inquisition and other such events. During the inquisition there were also rules of evidence (from spanish courts) that made it easier to take these scriptures out of context. E.g. "We saw a woman turn into a cat and run away, therefore she is a witch" would not be accepted as evidence in any North American court today, although it was good enough evidence at the time.

Koran Verses that support the concept of eliminating those who do not believe:
Koran -2:15, 2:85, 2:89, 2:90, 2:122, 2:154 (skip about 20 quotes) 3:5, 3:10, 3:12, 3:19, 3:28,3:118, 5:57, 5:67, 55:69 5:80-82 (skip a few) 6:5-8, 6:21, 6:23-27(skip some more) 6:125... Ok you get the point... Flip open you copy of the Koran to see what I mean. I only picked the obvious quotes where "kill the unbeliever" or "God will kill the unbeliever" or "unbelievers will burn in hell" was the theme.

Conclusion:
It is important to point out that both Holy Books contain moderate viewpoints along with fundamentalist views. The flaw that I am pointing out here is that people continually fall back to the fundamentalist view as a result of use of the religious text. This is indeed a major flaw of each religion. Once people are able to devalue another human according to the belief system it becomes quite easy to take the next step. Murder!

An example of de-valuing a human is this: “You are sinful according to my beliefs and you will contaminate the beliefs of my children, wife, community, etc. therefore I must remove you in order to protect their afterlife”

Does anyone care to debate this? "Those who are believers most often find justification to kill."

p.s You do not need to quote scripture to show me that each text says good things too, I know this, it is not the point of this debate.

RCAlyra2004,

RCA - there are a lot of generalizations there... I agree with your most basic point, which is that systems of belief (whether religious, political, ideological) more often enable people to villify others as a class... However, I don't think this is limited in any way to Christianity or Islam though.

Maybe this discussion can look at this principal in the most general terms. I'm a little wary of the possible direction this could take.

I think there is an interesting kernal of debate inside the OP. I think that focusing on religion is way too narrow.

There are all sorts of ways we can demonize the Other and justify killing them.

For example the Hutus and Tootsies were tribal rather religious, the US and Soviet Union was ideological rather than religious.

This could go on but I think you see my point.

In most cases, disputes come down to who resources (land, power, capitol, mineral deposits, etc.). Religion and ideology are just lenses through which we can "rationalize" dispute.

Charlatan...furthermore, in Rwanda, the creation of "Hutu" and "Tutsi" has a whole lot to do with the colonial imperialism imposed on the people...while certain differences existed prior to the Belgians, it was their framework of evaluting that difference as supiriority/inferiority that created one piece of the rivalry and genocide.

But i disagree with your conclusion that religion comes after the fact as a rationalization. Religions historically have a history of both supporting and disrupting claims to resources...Hitler certainly claimed God(s?) was on his side, but religion was there at the Barmen declaration where churches claimed resistance.

Religious belief is not a necessary or sufficient condition for claims to violence, or claims to peace.

I think the concept of religion has saved more lives than it has taken. Religious sources were the places that spread educational things like reading and writing. They are also a sort of social safety net for the less fortunate. People who are religious may also be less likely to kill in a non-religious war.

This is about as provable as the OP's assertion, so I won't try and give random examples though.

I think you need to look a little closer at history. The dispute between the US and the OLD Soviet Union was as religious as it was ideological in the sense that conservative Christian politicians would not accept anything other than American style democracy, "praise god". No large mass of people died. Demonizing each other was the order of the day.

DOGMA IS DOGMA IS DOGMA.

Had there been a war, preachers all over the USA would have proclaimed that the faithless” Russian Atheists" must be routed out. The American Government would also have used any means necessary to justify this to their people.

The dispute between the Hutu’s and the Tootsies has everything to do with the religious history of each of the tribes. They have been enemies for ages and their religious beliefs have now accommodated this fact. To change the minds of the masses, away from a hatred for each other is now impossible.

The Tootsies and the Hutu's have to be able to kill each other without the penalty of eternal damnation according to their own religion.

Think about it another way, Why won't the Palestinians accept that the Jews control the holy grounds? Why won't they just live together in peace? To do so would fly in the face of each of their "faiths". (This is a provable fact based on their own religious texts) In the same way that an Atheist living next door threatens some peoples fundamental religious beliefs.

The Koran repeatedly says that unbelievers must be routed out, that they are an affront to God. So does Deuteronomy Chapter three. Oddly the Israelites have been more “mainstream” lately; they have actually been quite tolerant. PLease don't try to tell me that HAMAS isn't a religious organization first and political second.

Do the people run to the Holy texts and look to see if it is ok to kill? The religious belief set sets the context for them well in advance of the conflict.

I will agree with that.

I suppose I was reacting to the OPs overtly stated opinion in one direction vs. another. The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.

RCAlyra2004 sorry but you are misinformed.

The Hutus and Tutsies share the same religion and language.

The good of religion is far too often overlooked for the bad that has been done in the name of the same.

Humans being what they are will find excuses to justify their actions. Religion is but one excuse. There are many.


As for the Soviet/US conflict. Religion was but a tool in the tool box of persuasion. A method of further underscoring difference in the Other so as to demonize a foe. The true dispute was more about ideology and the world balance of power.

Also, I'd take issue with you classification of the Cold War as one where masses of people did not die... Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan (where we supported resistance to Soviet occupation, resulting in a decade of war) belie this assertion.

You say DOGMA IS DOGMA IS DOGMA and I agree with you - but that doesn't mean that I'd characterize the wars mentioned above as religious in character. I'd say that the causes fought over had a fervor to them that was similar to religions. Hence my point in post #2 - "systems of belief (whether religious, political, ideological) more often enable people to villify others as a class... " I still don't think that this is limited to religious systems.

RCA...the point isn't about Hamas (or Israel for that matter) being religious or political first. I don't know that there is a clean cut line of separation. Political beleifs are one way of ordering one's experience of the world...and they have strong interaction with religious beleifs. Is Hamas religious or political? It's a null question, becuase it imples that the political program of its adherants can be separated from their experience of Islam...and that their formulation of Islam is isolated from their political history and experience of interaction with the West. And on the flip...Sharon was (is) pretty much an athiest...but was one of the hardest voices on expansion and expulsion of Palestinians. until his recent change of heart.

Also...i find it very hard to believe that the Cold War was about evangelical Christianity. Some of the hardest cold warriors were in fact Catholic...although some of their co-religionists were also in the socialist and sympathizer fringes. Religious affiliation did not predict stance on Communism.

Charlatan points out correctly that you're misrepresenting the history of the conflict in Rwanda.

There's a word for what you're doing here...and it's isogesis. It's the interpretation of events and texts by the impostition of a prior framework of expectations.

I think that you've drawn too narrow a point here. War is simply politics by other, more violent means. All of your examples have funamental flaws in the religious nature of their roots. For instance:

September 11 - many people much smarter and better informed than I have pointed out that Al Qaeda's attack was political rather than religious in nature. That organization rejects America's presence in Saudi Arabia and the embrace of Israel as well as American suppression of popular (in many cases Islamist) democratic movements because they are not in America's best interest. Restricting your point to simply saying that they believe the US is in league with the devil doesn't acknowledge some very important facts.

Salem Witch Trials - religion was the excuse used to purge the community of Salem. This was a basic power struggle very similar to the USSR c. 1929-1939 with religion as the excuse rather than "wrecking" or "Trotskyism" that the Soviets used. Those in power chose to listen the accusers in order to seize their property.

Nazi Germany - I don't understand your point of including this example. The Nazi's were a purely political organization and were hostile to Christianity at times. They certainly were not driven by religious fervor any more than the Soviets at roughly the same time were motivated by it. One group persecuted by the Nazi's - the Jews - were a religious group, but the Nazi's also went after the Gypsys, homosexuals, Slavs and Communists. If anything, the Nazi's were more into the occult, but even that is a tenous claim.

Iraq/Kuwait - Saddam is notorious areligous. He attacked Kuwait for the oil profits. His excuse may have been that "God promised it to us", but that's clearly just the excuse for the attempt. I'm not sure where you've gotten this quote, since at the time he said that Kuwait was an Iraqi province and retaliation for Kuwaiti slant drilling into Iraqi oil reserves. Please note that Iraq fought a prolonged war with the most militantly religous state in the region - Iran - in the 1980's. Also, many of the higher level Iraqis in his goverment were non-Muslim, most notably Tariq Aziz who is a Christian. There's also the fact that Saddam removed the Sharia laws from the books when he came to power, which is pretty much a direct rejection of fundamentalist Islam.

Israel - this is a real estate conflict with religion as a backdrop. The Palestinians basically got kicked off what they thought of as their own land by the Jews/Israelis. I think that you need to research the creation of the Israeli state. The two sides are of differing religions, but that's neither the source nor the continuing reason for the conflict.

Wars are very rarely religious in nature. With the exception of a couple of the Crusades (the Children's Crusade most notably), there really hasn't been a truely religious war that I can think of. There have been lots of wars where religion has been the backdrop, but the basic causes tend to be economic or political in nature. Whenever one group attacks another, it's because they feel oppressed or they want something like land or other resources. You are absolutely correct in saying that religion is often used to motivate the rank and file, but the leaders who decide whether or not to go to war in the first place are motivated by much more secular things than religious passages. Please show me an example of where a leader relied solely on religion as an impetous for war - I'll bet that you can't find one.

You can take snippets out of virtually any philosphy to make a case for or against war. I think that you've done the exact same thing with this topic - you've taken a snippet out of one of the causes for conflicts and bent it around to fit your arguement. You're falling into exactly the same trap as those that your critisisg.

BZZT - wrong. Thanks for playing. The Cold War was about who was going to control Europe. The religious overtones were simply one of the talking points. Any Cold War historian will tell you exactly the same thing, and the Soviets couldn't have cared less if the US were a bunch of religious zealots. Stalin just wanted to control Western Europe the same way he did the Eastern portion.

Edit - saying that conservative Christian politicians made the Cold War into a religious conflict is the same as saying that Civil was a religious war. Sure some people read religion into the events, but the majority did not. The Soviets for sure did not view it with as anything religious in nature other than to make their own use of our religious propaganda, which was a part of demonizing process. The Soviets even found their own use for religion when it served their purposes - Stalin allowed the appointment of a metropolitan of the Orthodox church during WWII, the first time that office had been held since Peter the Great got rid of it in the early 18th Century.

Another facet of the Nazi regime is that while the Holocaust could easily be the most horrific part of World War II, all of the aggression that Germany committed was against other countries with similar religious beliefs - Catholic and Protestant. The holocaust was essentially a by product of a tremendously insane man committed mostly against his own country.

The Cold War was entirely about ideology. Russia and the U.S. had far more in common in terms of faith (in essence, both were officially secular governments) than any of the countries they propped up to fight via proxy (Muslims, Shintos). It was all about the domino effect and how to get it started.

Charlatan... thats my point, in fact I think now that we actually agree.

It's like the British and French praying to Jesus for support during their battle against each other, The main problem is that according to the tenets of their beleif (both sides) they are allowed to kill each other and still make it to heaven. In essence their religion allows them to demonize and kill another group and NOT lose their own eternal life.

The history of conflict between the two African tribes began four centuries ago. The Tutsis are a warrior tribe of Hamatic origin. Sometimes called the "Watutsi", they invaded the Hutu in Rwanda from the North. The Hutu couldn't defend themselves and they were taken over by the Tutsi and reduced to serfdom. Each Hutu chose a Tutsi Lord who gave them use of cattle. There wasn't much conflict until 1959 when a civil war broke out when the leaders of both tribes were killed. The Hutu tried to get equality through the National Party of Hutu Emancipation. This did not work however. In 1960, elections were held under Belgium supervision. More Hutus won and the Hutus took over the government. The Hutu Gregoire Kayibanda was elected president. Two years later Rwanda won independence and the Hutus started mistreating the Tutsis. After independence, violence erupted between the two tribes. In 1973 Kayibanda was accused of being lenient with Tutsis who slaughtered thousands of Hutus in Burundi. The army was unhappy about this so they took over the government. General Habyarinew was appointed president of Rwanda. In 1990 the Tutsis began a civil war against the Hutu government. The Tutsis forced the Hutus to Zairian refugee camps. Since Zaire is a poor country and they couldn't support the Hutu refugees they forced the Hutus back to Rwanda. Finally in 1994 settlements seemed to be working out. Later in 1994 a plane crashed at Kigali, Rwanda's capital, with a Hutu leader on board. The Hutus thought the Tutsis were responsible for this act. Hutu extremists began their campaign of genocide after this. 500,000 Tutsis were killed by the Hutu extremists, who also killed Hutus who wanted to live peacefully with the Tutsis.

Again... their religion allows them to kill as illustrated in my original post.

While the religion may allow for the killing (and that is largely debatable) it is ultimatley not the cause of the violence in all cases.

Humans will use any form of persuasion to convince themselves that they are right. The Hutus didn't not turn to GOD for this absolution. They turned to racist propaganda that stated the Tutsies were traitorous or sub-human. Sound familiar? The Nazis used similar terms for the jews.

Again, in this case it was not a religious thing. The fact that the Jews were of a different religion is practically immaterial.

I agree with martin: isogesis.

No…. no… they’re not. In fact, there’s no way around the fact that they are committing a sin that will bar them from heaven.

Power is the only thing that really causes wars and killing. Many heads of state in history switched religions to increase their power, land, or personal lifestyle. Nobody has ever truly gone to war over religion, even though they may claim it. It’s always about how to make your wallet fatter or your kingdom mightier. Even the crusades, which were supposedly all about converting people to Christianity was really a war that was designed to increase the power and wealth of religiously affiliated clerics. You decide not to join, we kill you and take all of your stuff. You decide to join, great, you give us your offerings now.

While there may be footsoldiers who truly believe they are doing God’s work, no fool general believes it. Otherwise, why isn't bin Laden, the head of al Queda blowing himself up for 72 doe eyed virgins? Why does he have millions of dollars?

I don't belive the bible says anything about a sin that bars people from heaven. If it does say murder or war are things that remove your possibility of heaven, I'd love for you to show it to me.

I hope you're not asking for any practical reasons...

(Just kidding - couldn't resist)

Interesting argument, but there is a flaw.. Bzzt wrong so say it on your own words.

Point 1 : The Islamic Pilot who flew the planes into the Tower SURE AS HELL beleived that they were going to a wonderful place after thier death. Funny thing is that the Koran confirms this thinking AND we don't even have to take it out of context. They REALLY beleived that they were attacking the devil. Any speculations that you care to make about why Al Qaeda wants the US out of the middle east is just speculation. You may be right, but the religion of these people still alows them to strap bombs to their chest and attack... and get a greater reward greater than that of the average Muslim. Their families will even get a reward, to the tune of thousands of dollars. Their pictures are put up high and they are declared Heros!

Point 2 With all due respect, the NAZI's were not just a political Organization. The were Aryan Supremacists, a unique and dangerous religious philosophy that was half heartedly grounded in the eugenics movement... I really don;t want to spend any time defending this point... but you may want to check on this for yourself.

Point 3 The salem witch trials. The people who made the claim that the salem witches were witches actually took these claims seriously enough to hang the "perpetrators" (witches) in a public place after the trial. The fact that they took the property of the witches and kept it is secondary to the fact they they knowingly and publically did what they did. NO ONE dared protest the decision of the court for fear that they would also be deemed a witch, or found to be in collusion with the witches.

Imagine yourself in a position to really beleive that someone is a witch who successfully casts curses on your home town... causing your crops to die, animals to get sick and for lightning to strike your fields. For you to beleive such a thing in the first place means YOU ARE A RELIGIOUS PERSON, as most people were in Salem, at that time.


Point 4 Your definition of Israel as a simple real estate issue defies any understanding of middle eastern politics. The Israelis and the Muslims have been waging war, periodically, for thousands of years. There is NO dipute over the fact that their systems of religion are at the root of the problem. read both of the Holy texts for yourself. Again Hamas is a religious organization, grounded in human rights issues, that has now become political.

No matter what war we look at , there is one aspect of it that is consistent. People who fight (not necessarily those who sit and watch from the top) beleive that what they are doing is acceptable from their own religious and ethical framework. What we think happens to us after we die plays a huge role in what we decide to do today, especially in matters of war.

First point: I think you really *do* need to defend your point that Nazism was religious. Certainly some members of the Nazi party tried to use Christianity to defend their actions, but others didn't have much to do with Christianity. You can certainly make a case that the Crusades or the more modern-day Islamic jihadists are somehow religious in nature -- for the people in these organizations, their activity can either be characterized as religion fueling politics or politics fueling religion, depending on your view. But it seems clear to me that the Nazi aggression, both internal and external, was primarily naked ambition, with any religious motives used as a pretext.

Second Point: What about Stalin's massacre of millions upon millions of his own people? Did that have religious motivations? If so, you're using religious in a sense that I'm unfamiliar with.

A broader point,

Both of the religious texts that I have quoted (deuteronomy chapter 3, 13 and the quotes from the Koran) CLEARLY say that those who observe that the faithful should "kill" those who try to lead them away from their "true" religion. You do not have to take these scriptures out of context in order to kill a non-beleiver.

Some of you say that I am makeing the mistake of isogesis when I claim that religious people who beleive their own sacred document to be accurate will follow those instructions and kill the nonbeleivers when directed by their generals, presidents etc. You say that I am making too narrow an argument.

Have you actually read these texts... or do you think I am making this shit up?

3:18 And I commanded you at that time, saying, The LORD your God hath given you this land to possess it: ye shall pass over armed before your brethren the children of Israel, all that are meet for the war.

3:22 Ye shall not fear them: for the LORD your God he shall fight for you.

This scripture also supports my main point:

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.

(13:6-10) "Thine hand shall be first upon him."

If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tries to get you to worship another god, "thou shalt surely kill him, thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death."

If Bible-believers followed this one, they would have to kill many of their own family and friends. I have heard it said that as many as 50 percent of Americans beleive that the Bible is the inerrant word of God.(seems little high to me) Either they do not know what their bible says... or they ignore it.

The major flaw with unfetterd "belief" in religion is that it periodically leads to the killing of those who disagree with it. It also leads to the victimization of those who quietly lead lives that are contrary to the scriptures.

.

The reason we 'ignore' those commands is because we believe that they were delivered to a specific people at a specific point in time, when it was first of all more necessary to get rid of this sort of thing and second more in line with society's beliefs as a whole. Now, you might think this is just rationalization for something we don't want to do (and I suspect you do), but it seems to me it's an important point that we're not just ignoring things like this, we have reasons for doing so.

You'll probably say that, then, why do we follow other parts of scripture, all of which in some sense is directed towards a specific people at a specific time? My general rule, and one I think a lot of thinking Christians tend to work with, is this: We are justified in disregarding a specific command in scripture if and only if (1) we have a prima facie case for believing that it doesn't apply to us today and (2) we can discern and follow a general principle behind the specific command. In the case of the command you cite, I would say that the prima facie case is clear; few of us believe it's okay to kill unbelievers, merely because they're unbelievers. So what's the general principle? It's that we should avoid spending time with people if that time is going to end up leading us away from God. Not that we should avoid spending time with unbelievers, but that if the time we're spending with them is drawing us away from the faith, we need to cut down on that time.

Of course, you didn't respond to any of my substantive point above...

RCAlyra2004 the bible also says we should stone people for doing things that are done everyday... why don't the laws of Leviticus get followed? If they are Christians they should follow it all, right? That's what you seem to be suggesting here.

There are some who might go to war or kill others because they misunderstand the teachings of their religion or have been taugh in a warped fashion, but the truth is far from what you are suggesting.

Additionally, National Socialism (Nazism) was not any more a religion than Republicanism is... not at all.

First of all, to insist that National Socialism was a religious movement defies logic and any sort of understanding of the rationales behind it and the reasons for its rise. This was a purely economic creation of the Depression, much the same as the rise of Soviet Socialism 20 years earlier in the Russian Empire. The Nazis were never a religious organization, although some members of the party famously played with the occult. If anything, the Nazis were hostile to religion since they felt that it interfered with the debasement of the individual before the state.

Also, your original post limited the discussion to Christianity and Islam. If National Socialism is a "unique and dangerous religious philosophy that was half heartedly grounded in the eugenics movement", then are we opening the floor to discuss other religions? By the way, the eugenics movement was purely scientific and had little to no basis in religion. It is Darwinism at it's coldest.

As for the Islamic pilots and their cohorts, I completely agree that they all thought they were going to their promised reward but to state that that was the ONLY or even the PRIMARY reason that they did what they did is absurd beyond belief. If they were simply looking to die as martyrs, there were simpler, quicker ways to do it. I will certainly conceed that there was an overt religious element to their statement, but to insist that it was only a religious statement is naive. There is a definitely political statement contained within the horrors of 9/11, one that aims directly at US foreign policy. Do you really think that these guys weren't around during the Soviet invasion of Afganistan? Russia directly oppresses millions of Muslims, yet 9/11 was aimed at the US, not Moscow. The Indians have recently fought wars against Pakistan, Chinese outlawed Islam in several provinces and French meddled in Northern Africa on an almost daily basis, yet the US was the target. You don't see anything political there? I completely agree that these guys justified their "sacrifice" with religion, but the basic motivation was purely political.

The Salem Witch Trials had several motiviations, and I think that you've missed my point.

This was the basis of my arguement and is indeed the entire basis for the phrase "witch hunt". This is McCarthyism and Stalinism at their finest. Yes, religion is the backdrop for Salem, but the exact same thing happened in the 30's in the USSR with Trotskyism as the backdrop and in the 50's in the US with anti-communism. These were ways for people to persecute their enemies and take what they wanted. The Spanish Inquisition did the same thing 150 years before Salem. Whether or not you believed in witches (a most un-Christian belief, I might point out) was beside the point. As an accuser, you used witchcraft as the tool to rid yourself of those who had something you wanted, mainly property in Salem's case. I think that you need to go back and read some of the facts. Let me know if you want me to point you in the right direction.

Finally, Israel still boils down to a real estate dispute at its very core regardless of how you look at it. Both groups find some sites very important to them and demand complete control of them. The other group doesn't like that. As time goes on there are more and more attrocities committed by each group. However, in the last 500 years, the Jews living in Palestine got along fairly well with the Muslims until the 40's. There were no attacks by one side or the other, although there were certainly minor scirmishes here and there, and those were rarely deadly. The same scenario played itself out in Northern Ireland and is still going on in Sri Lanka and the Congo. Religion may be the differences between the groups, but it isn't the reason for their conflict. Please show me where in the Koran it says to kill Jews, since that's what we're talking about. Or you can find any sort of Talmudic reference, I'll accept that too. Neither religion preaches death to nonbelievers, although you can take passages out of any text to prove just about any point, as have the more feverent adherents of pretty much any religion out there.

By the way, how are your slaves doing? Have you beaten your wife lately? When was the last time that you sacrificed an animal to please God? All those are in the Old Testament. My point is that these texts are used to justify actions that people want to take anyway.

I didn't realize that the Nazi's were religious.

The killings in WW1 weren't based on religion either as best I understand it.

Many died in communist China - and in communist Combodia.

My facts might be wobbly (I'm no historian), but I think they're essentially ok. I'm no great fan of religion really, but I don't know if we can blame it for the majority of killing.

It seems to me that humans will kill each other anyways... it just so happens that some of those who get involved in fighting also come from a religious background.

HI everyone ... Back from work...
Point 1 for asaris:

Here are some of the "Holy sites" listed as shrines to the religion and ideology of Naziism (spelling?) I got this from one of many online site in which this issue is discussed, You should also check out Wegner, antisemitism in german schools ( I hope I have the title correct) In know Wegner wrote it,

Aryanism is a very old religion that started in Persia a very long time ago. This is not to be confused with Naziism... More on that one later....

Quote:
Holy sites
As, especially after World War II, Nazism became for many of its followers a spiritual path akin to a religion, it naturally had some sites of pilgrimage, which one might call "holy sites". Savitri Devi visited many of them during her pilgrimage in 1953.

Berchtesgaden, home of the Berghof.
Braunau am Inn, birthplace of Adolf Hitler.
Feldherrnhalle, site of, the end of, the failed Munich Putsch
Leonding, where the parents of Adolf Hitler were buried.
Linz, where Hitler went to school.
Landsberg am Lech, where Hitler was imprisoned.
Nuremberg, site of the enormous Nazi rallies.
Wewelsburg, headquarters of the SS.
Wunsiedel, burial site of Rudolf Hess.
Devi also visited some sites, as part of her pilgrimage, not directly connected to Nazism, but of Germanic spiritual, or German national significance:

Externsteine, pre-christian formation
Hermannsdenkmal, statue of Germany's national hero Arminius the Cheruscan
End Quote:


Point 2:

Stalin did Kill... he Killed a lot. Whats your point?... this dicussion is about the fact that religious beleif makes it easier (at times) for people to demonize and kill each other. I sense you are sensitive to this fact... when infact you should realise what it actually says in your Bible. The fact that an atheist can kill shouldn't be a surprise. Don't rationalize what you think happened in history...look at what historical facts you can find and make a decision based on that.

Point 3: Asaris

OK so you decide that you are going to Ignore portions of scripture. Perhaps we'll ignore the sticky parts and stay with the "nice stuff". The warm and fluffy. What have you just done for the 35 percent of Americans that beleive that the Bible is the inerrant "Word of God". Who are you and I to decide which parts to ignore? You are on a spiritual slippery slope here.

Here is what your actual answer should have been: Jesus ushered in the New covenant, in which only those who have not sinned would "throw the first stone". And of course that would mean that none of us should throw the stone. OK christians are off the hook... wait... I said that in my opening post.

In my opening post I said: Note: There are many New Testament scriptures that, if taken out of context can be used to justify killing. It is not fair to use these to make my point. BUT it is important to note that they have been taken out of context and HAVE been used to justify killing in Jesus name during the Spanish inquisition and other such events.

Point 4: Charlatan

"RCAlyra2004 the bible also says we should stone people for doing things that are done everyday... why don't the laws of Leviticus get followed? If they are Christians they should follow it all, right? That's what you seem to be suggesting here."

I think you actually get what I am saying but you are toying with me.

I am suggesting this; Many(not all) modern day people still refer to the Bible and the Koran as "God's word". Many take it at it's face value. Because it is held in such high esteem and because many people actually beleive what it says they can easily be inclined to follow it's words. 100 million people died during wars during the last century(fact) How many of them were killed by atheists? How many went to war beleiveing what their politicians, backed by their religious leaders told them? Why do the american armed forces have ministers of religion on staff? On my desk I have a copy of a book by Sam Harris in which he shows the results of survey that says 35 percent of United states residents beleive Jesus will return during their life time. Thankfully fewer canadians think that way, but you get my point. While we may find it hard to beleive everything written in the Good Book, and while we pick and choose what we beleive many people actually accept what they are told. Asaris makes a good point , not to accept everything written in scripture> I couldn't agree more!

Charlatan, Asaris... Check out this website... http://www.godhatessweden.com/
(warning very strong language for a Christian site)
They ACTUALLY think all Christians should follow the levitical standards. It is really important to mention that this website is NOT a Joke. There are thousands of followers in this church. And they make my point quite beautifully... which scriptures do we follow? why? who gets to choose?
Did you know that according to that church WE are going to hell becasue we don't follow the levitical standards! even though I have done none of those sins, but I don;t endorse the levitical point of view

Here is another set of statistics that I find quite compelling.
From Sam Harris's Book, The End of Faith.
Suicide Bombing in Defense of Islam
Is it Justifiable?
(please note: I typed this in by hand so forgive formatting errors)
Country %Yes %No %refused to answer

Lebanon 73 21 6
Ivory Coast 56 44 0
Nigeria 47 45 8
Bangladesh 44 37 19
Jordan 43 48 8
Pakistan 33 43 23

OK the list has 7 more countries on it... but if you add up the percentages this accounts for more than 200 Million people who support the defense of islam by using terroist methodology. Please Note... this Survey did not include IRAN, AFGHANISTAN OR IRAQ, SAUDI ARABIA, and many other countries.

I can't imagine how bad things would have to be here for The American president to ask people to do what the leaders of Iran asked... (he actually encouraged his people to take part in the war against Israel only 2 months ago, using any method possible)

This quote is from the BBC news website profile of the leader of IRAN
Quote:
Iran leader defends Israel remark

Protesters in Tehran burned Israeli flags
Iran's president has defended his widely criticised call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
Attending an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his remarks were "just" - and the criticism did not "have any validity".

His initial comment provoked anger from many governments, and prompted Israel to demand Iran's expulsion from the UN.

Egypt said they showed "the weakness of the Iranian government". A Palestinian official also rejected the remarks.

If it is written in a scripture that we should hate -so and so, that scripture will still be around a thousand years from now when someone will use it to lead credulous people in a war against - so and so

Jazz

You said:

By the way, how are your slaves doing? Have you beaten your wife lately? When was the last time that you sacrificed an animal to please God? All those are in the Old Testament. My point is that these texts are used to justify actions that people want to take anyway.

I SAY:
This is My point... the bible actually says these things are acceptable. Even though you and I do not want slavery now ( I know... "speak for yourself RCA"...) These religious texts will be used to justify Slavery again at some time in the future.

It is a darned good thing that scriptures do not say we should let snakes bite us as we worship a Christian God or someone would try that... what? it does say that... people in arizona do let snakes bite them as they worship? Yep.
I dare say that they actually do that ONLY because the Bible says so...


Jazz... I think we come at this from two different perspectives. Your prespective seems to be (correct me if I have it wrong) that people will Use any method to Justify anything selfish, including religion. In this you are quite correct! (if thats what you really mean).

What I am saying is ... People do use religion to justify just about anything.That is the danger of having Outdated and Dangerous texts at the central core of any beleif system. While we may disagree on the Salem Witch trials and on the issue of Israel, we both know that people are using scripture to justify their hatred of others.

A further point on religion

Not all religions are the same.. some are WAY more violent than others. I really hope that no one is offended when I say what I say about religion.. As far as I can tell No religion has perfectly "clean hands" they have all be used to justify "something" Hateful.

Again... It seems that christianity has to be taken "out of context" on order to justify hatred... a testament to the teachings of Jesus!

from adherents.com

Leni Riefenstahl's 1934 film about the Nuremberg Party Rally, Triumph of the Will, is in many ways profoundly religious. The film both makes use of Catholic religious imagery and draws on the Catholic sacramental tradition to give dignity and legitimacy to its construction of Adolf Hitler as the "god" of the Nazi movement... Since the beginning, Catholicism and Nazism had an uncomfortable coexistence. They jarred long before Riefenstahl began filming Hitler's rally in the summer of 1934... The Concordat, along with many other more famous agreements and treaties signed by the Fuehrer, was quickly violated, and the Church was ineffective in protecting Catholics from all manner of religious and cultural harassment. Alfred Rosenberg, the closest Nazism as an ideology ever came to having a philosopher, was consistently and virulently anti-Catholic... Hitler himself was not purely or simply anti-Catholic or anti-Church, and certainly not so before his rise to power. He was a baptized Catholic, as was his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, and a number of other prominent members of his administration. Interestingly, though both men rejected their Catholic faith and recognized...

From Atheism.com

A popular image of the Nazis is that they were fundamentally anti-Christian while devout Christians were anti-Nazi. The truth is that German Christians supported the Nazis because they believed that Adolf Hitler was a gift to the German people from God. German Christianity was a divinely sanctioned religious movement which combined Christian doctrine and German character in a unique and desirable manner: True Christianity was German and True German-ness was Christian.

from Nobeleif.com

Nazi photos

compiled by Jim Walker
created: 20 May 1998
additions: 29 Jan. 2006

The following photos provide a pictorial glimpse of Hitler, how his Nazis mixed religion with government, and the support for Hitler by the Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany. In, no way, does this gallery of photos intend to support Nazism or anti-Semitism, but instead, intends to warn against them.

Aryanism

Vaishnavism : Aryan Religion
Vaishnavism, the religion of the Aryans of nortern India, is one of the most important religions of the world. The concept of incarnation led to the most widely encompassing religion the world has seen; with the number of such avatars being infinite. Among the generally recognized incarnations are:


Brahma
Buddha
Jain Tirthankaras
Rama and Krishna

One-fourth of the population of Hindustan (North India) is Aryan-Vaishnavite, three-fourths in the Deccan and 3% in Dravidia. Smaller communities of Vaishnavites exist throughout the world.

OK More about Hitler

Hitler Hated Catholicism... But loved certain parts of it. Believed in Aryan supremacy, but could not draw a clear line from the "Volkish Beliefs" of the Germanic State to the Persian Aryan religion. Lived in his own Pseudo-Religious world and affected the religion of many of his people with his ideology of Volkish, Germanic, Aryan supremacy.

In short while claiming to hate organized religion, was one of the most charismatic Semi-religious characters to lead the German people.

From Ucalgary.com (university of Calgary)

The Christians were not the only group who claimed to be the true successors of Abraham. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century the Arabs also came to emphasize their descent from the Patriarch.
Interestingly, the descriptions of Abraham's life as found in the Koran are strongly influenced by Jewish traditions. They incorporate many events not mentioned in the biblical accounts, such as Abraham's disputes with his idol-worshipping father and his conflict with the wicked king Nimrod who cast him into a fiery furnace. All this provides ample proof that Mohammed had Jewish teachers.

The story of the akedah also found its way into the Koran (37:103), where the story conforms in most respects with the biblical version. Later Islamic tradition took it for granted that the sacrificed son was actually Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs.

Yet another aspect of the complex inter-relationships between Judaism, Christianity and Islam is demonstrated by the following example.

The covenant between God and Abraham, as described in Genesis 15, is accompanied by a queer ceremony of splitting the carcasses of various animals into pieces. Verse 11 relates, "And the birds of prey came down upon the carcases, and Abraham drove them away."

A medieval Yemenite midrashic anthology, the Midrash Ha-Gadol, explains this as meaning that "when Abraham laid the halves of the pieces over against each other, they became alive and flew away," this being God's way of demonstrating to him the doctrine of Resurrection of the Dead.

This detail is not mentioned, as far as I am aware, by any talmudic source, though it is alluded to in the Arabic translation of the great 10th Century scholar Rav Saadya Ga'on, who interpreted the Hebrew phrase vayashev otam Avram, normally rendered as "Abram drove [the birds] away," as "Abraham revived them."

The earliest attested version of the legend seems to be the following:

And when Abraham said: "Lord show me how you will revive the dead," He said, "What, do you not yet believe?" Said he, "Yea, but that my heart may be quieted." He said, "Then take four birds, and take them close to yourself; then put a part of them on every mountain; then call them, and they will come to you in haste; and know that God is mighty, wise."
The source for this midrash? It is found in the Koran (2:260)!
It would appear possible that later Jewish commentators were making free use of an Islamic tradition that provided corroboration for the Jewish belief in resurrection. The desire to find biblical support for the crucial doctrine of resurrection had long preoccupied the talmudic Rabbis, and Mohammed's exegesis offered a convenient proof-text. The interpretation sounded so "orthodox" that its true origin was eventually forgotten. The possibility should not however be discounted that Mohammed himself may have been citing an originally Jewish teaching which was not preserved in our own sources.

Jeff's Note... In some (only a few) of the texts I have read They show this as one of the central points of conflict between the Jewish Thologians and the Muslim Theologians. I don't know the answer but I know that both religions lay claim to the fatherhood of Abraham/Ibrahim. When a conflict between two groups gets this "specific" it has gone beyond simple economics. Often this happens when somone is looking for the last bit of evidence that allows them to know "for sure" that theyare right and the other person is wrong.


I have to travel today... so I wont be back to Debate much more today!

Have a great Day everyone !


Charlatan, Asaris, Jazz, You have all given me a lot to think about. Thanks for helping me refine my position!

For a comprehansive review about the history of the Arab Israeli conflict check out this site. the links on this page explain the role of religion in the conflict.

http://www.science.co.il/Arab-Israel...ct-2.asp#Clash

Man...i just have to laugh.

Did you know?

There's no such object as a religion?

Religion is a category of analysis imposed by western scholarship on certain patterns of behavior. But that doesn't mean that there is any such thing. Which is why it's hysterical to watch you so confidently declare that Nazism was a religion.

Religion is a made up word anyhow. You might as well be saying that it's a Thunderblatt for as much as it matters. There's no ontological affininty between "religious" rhetorics that makes them violent or non-violent...all this is a grouping of unlike objects into the same category of analysis in order to make a point about that same category of analysis.

This circularity means that this thread tells us infinitely more about how you think about "religion" than it does about the same.

No murderer will enter into Heaven. (Galatians 5:21)

Do any of you theologians put credence behind the Dead Sea Scrolls' versions of the gospels? What little I know (very) is that the earlier versions were much more harsh. Closer to the Koran as far as penalties for unbelievers and the competition. The theory goes that the "modern" version of the bible was watered down to survive under rule that wouldn't harbor revolutionaries. (Romans, etc.)

Again, my knowledge here is poor but I haven't heard anything on this topic in a few years. It's interesting to me since it would indicate Christianity evolved into it's comparitively moderate (PC) position out of a need for self-preservation as opposed to an inherent tolerance.

RCA - I think that we have finally found some middle ground here. My entire point has always been that you can take doctrine out of ANY religious text - Christian, Jewish, Islam, Buddhist, etc. - and use it as justification for war or killing. I don't think there's any debate about that. I think that you're still missing my fundamental point, though, which is that the religion is the justification not the motivation for war. Here's my challenge for you: find a war or even a long-term conflict such as Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials in the entirety of human history that was motivated solely by religion. I think that you will come up short. There is ALWAYS an underlying social, political or economic motivation for these conflicts, and religion is just the excuse used to remedy these conflicts. To say that people fight wars solely based on religious texts or even a preacher's say-so is to ignore basic human behavior.

Look, in every example that we've discussed, there has been some reason for one group to come into conflict with another. In Salem, there was property and control of a previously ungoverned community at stake. In Israel, it has always been control sacred sites, although in the recent past that has expanded into who controls the local economy. The 9/11 terrorists attacked US foreign and economic policy simply by the selection of their targets.

I think that you're confusing motivation and justification here, and there is certainly a set order of operations when it comes to any sizeable conflict like we're discussing. First people disagree over something, then as tensions rise they start looking for other diffences between the two groups and religion is often one of them. Looking to dogma for justification is simply a way of yelling "of course we're right" even louder.

Honestly, your point about some religions being more violent than others pretty much ignores historical evidence and basic human nature. There is no such thing as a culture that is more violent than any other, because an inherently violent culture would eventually kill off all of its members. Until the last 60 years or so, the Middle East was a relatively peaceful place, with only some minor scirmishes over territory and resources, the same as anywhere else in the world. The advent of Israel turned that on its head to an extent, although the end of 75 years of colonialism had something to do with the violence as well. There were Jews and Arabs living side by side along with Christians and everyone got along relatively well, the same as anywhere else. The Jewish seizure of power in 1947 upset that equalibrium, and that's the root of today's conflict. I enthusiastically conceed that there have been other issues piled upon that root, but that's what the modern conflict sprang from. If you want to go to earlier Muslim/Christian conflicts (we can't really talk about Muslim/Jewish conflicts because of the diaspora and lack of a united Jewish movement in the area until the mid-20th century), we have to go back to the Ottoman Empire, which was basically an expansionist power that conflicted with the other two expansionist powers in the area at the time, Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire. Neither of those conflicts had anything at all to do with religion but everything to do with economics (Russian access to the Black Sea and later the Mediterranean) and politics (Austro-Hungarian control of the Southeastern Europe). Let's not forget that France and England propped up the Islamic Ottoman Empire and its leader, the Sultan who was nominally the religious leader of all of his Islamic subjects, and these two powers successfully fought a war started by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Tsar Nicholas I (Crimean War).

Basically, there's no inherent conflict between any two religions, and there are lots of examples where two religions that are in conflict in one part of the world live in relative harmony in another part. To insist that Jews and Muslims feel compelled by their respective Gods to make war on each other ignores all of the other, more important motivations that human beings have.

I think this is being looked at in the wrong way, personally.

The issue here isn't that religion makes it easier for people to kill other people, but that most people are not sociopaths. A reason OF ANY KIND makes it easy to kill people, because you have a rationalization for it. Even sociopaths only kill people who attempt to make them deviate from their goals or fit their victim profile, for which they have a 'reason'.

So, the issue at stake is how much easier reasoning makes it for us to kill someone. I think that strength of belief is directly proportional to ease of killing in the name of. If you strongly believe your family is in danger, you would have an easier time killing for it than you would for, perhaps, believing your country was in danger. It's about how strongly you believe.

I think that's why Nationalism of different sorts and religion are being so intertwined in this discussion. Both are strong belief systems, but that doesn't make Nationalism a religion. It just makes it a belief. Believing that the sky is green doesn't make it a religion, after all. Nor does it make it true. That doesn't mean the zealot down the street won't kill you for believing it's blue.

Where to start?

1) I am pretty sure that we can all agree that religion can be and has been used to justify some very horrible things.
2) Turning #1 into a Universal statement about all religions and all people who practice religions completely ignores the millions (billions?) of people who practice their religion in peace.

There is no way you can convince me that Nazism in the 30s and 40s was in anyway a religion. To say that Triumph of the Will is religious entirely misses the point of propaganda. Riefenstahl and the Nazi PR machine were geniuses when it came to the image and manipulating the public.

They knew the imagery that would sell Hitler. They understood what the public wanted to see. You have to remember that Hitler was one of the frist politicians to use modern mass communications to sell himself. If you have a Catholic audience, you use their imagery. This is the same thing as someone like George W. Bush, a native of Maine, adopting a folksy accent. It's what the people want.

The mass rally at Nuremburg and the film that documents it, also use symbolism from ancient Rome, Wagner and Faust. Does this mean that National Socialism is also a Pan-Theist, opera-loving, literary genius? No. It means they knew how to play on the heart strings of a nation. Again, it is for these same reasons that advertisers associate their products with certain things (Come to Canada and ally your product with hockey. It will do well.).

I think the problem with some people is they confuse religion with culture.

A religion is part of the culture, but it is just a part. If a culture is violent, expansive, and warlike, religion will be used to foster that. If a culture is peaceful or isolationist, the same religion can be used to foster that.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head.

May I also remind people that one of the Ten Commandments is "Thou shalt not kill."

People have always twisted God's word to suit their needs. It's really nothing new.

Read the book of Judges and you might see that 'God' is very flexible there.

I agree that this is a very important point about the distinction between religion and culture, but I have to disagree with the supposition that some cultures are violent, expansive and warlike. Cultures aren't any of these things although their governments are. Cultures don't decide to go to war - governments do. Cultures don't persecute minorities - governments do. I certainly grant that individuals are complicit in the sins of the government, but blaming the entire German people (including the Austrians and Volga Germans in the USSR) for the sins of the Nazis is grossly unfair. It's the same story with the Inquisition - it was the Church hierarchy that did the persecution with the assistance of the monarch, not the people at large, although I am sure that there were individuals who were just as guilty as the Inquisitors.

Culture is a constant. It is a commonly held language, maybe a common religion (although not always), morals and customs. Cultures don't expand or contract on their own volition; they do so in pursuit of resources.

A culture is what allows a government to operate as it does. Governements are the instrument of that culture. Now what creates the culture is the real meat of the question.

cyrnel...

The dead sea scrolls are buried before Jesus. There are no gospels there.

There is a vast collection of Hebrew scriptures and other materials....

Read the book of Judges, and you might notice that the narration avoids praise of much of the actions that take place there...

"And in all Israel, the people did what they thought was right, for there was no King."

Broadly, i'm not saying you don't have a point. But going to judges is a odd place to justify that point.

Martin, what I recall is a number of entries that were extremely similar to later Biblical accounts. That's what was fascinating to me, though I became sidetracked professionally and never followed up. This thread reminded me of the connection, and the possible influences. I was hoping those of you better read than myself could draw lines as it related to the OP. Don't want to threadjack and at this point I'm well on my way.

I'd be happy with pointers to good reading material. Something readable by a mono-lingual layman. Translations and interpretations over the past decade from whatever perspectives.

Sorry if this repeats anything said already -- I just noticed there's a second page now.... I really like Anxst's post, btw.

The fact that you put 'holy sites' in quotes, and later on characterize the Nazis as 'pseudo-religious' and borrowing elements from Catholicism, indicates that the Nazis as such weren't truly religious, that they only used religion to further their own ends.

Well, to the extent that you're willing to say that any system of belief, not just religious belief, makes it easier to kill, I guess I don't really disagree with you. Anything worth living for is worth dying for, and it's quite a short step from something's being worth dying for, and that thing's being worth killing for.

That doesn't work since Christ says he came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it. Because of specific commands in the NT, we can ignore the purity laws of the OT. But it's not clear that the laws you cite are purity laws, so I just didn't want to go into that.

This is interesting and leads to my larger point here. Yes, Christians killed people during the Spanish inquisition, but the Catholic church actually objected to the harshness of the Spanish inquisition, much the same way as it objected to the harsh treatment of the Native Americans in the New World. The point is, religion in general and Christianity in particular has been responsible for a lot of good things in the world, not just some of the bad things. That's what sets religion apart from Stalinism or Nazism. Those two didn't contribute anything good to the world, where Christianity contributed science, the university, abolition of slavery, civil rights, and that's just Christianity and just off the top of my head. To focus on the bad things that have been done in the name of Christianity and religion is to skew the picture, and to skew it rather badly.

Asaris... Well said

There are some who read my original post and asumed that I say religion enables Murder "all the time". I simply didn't say that. Also.. Thanks for helping me define more clearly the role of Ideology as a whole, not just religious ideology.

Good stuff!

There is one very interesting point in what you said here... The greater catholic church objected to the spanish inquisition. You are correct as far as I know. In most cases, where religion is used to justify violence it is not a universal effort. It seems to happen one country/party at a time.

I still struggle with the whole "not to abolish the law but to fullfill it" quote from the Bible. I have always struggled with it, since there is some pretty nasty stuff in the old testament. Although, from a theological perspective... you are bang on correct!

Have a great day

Jazz.. Very good point... after a lot of thought about this one I can only come up with weak examples by which to disagree with you. But I am not quite yet willing to concede. Let me try this last argument on for size.

I just grabbed this from Wikipedia: So take it for what it's worth. Although it does agree with my Myers Psych TextBooks from University

"In psychology, motivation is the driving force behind all actions of human beings, animals, and lower organisms. It is an internal state that activates behavior and gives it direction. Emotion is closely related to motivation, and may be regarded as the subjectively experienced component of motivational states."

If a person were to read in the bible that the world is Flat would they be motivated to deny the truthfullness of the claim "the world is actually round" as it was made a few centuries ago. Would they be motivated by scripture to correct the person who denies what scripture says?

Judaism, christianity and Islam have similar problems with their texts.. They use the "Doctrine of faith".

If I have it right... The doctrine of faith is this: You are requred to beleive in order to be saved by your faith.

New testament (also from Wikipedia ...just now) Bear with me this point takes a while.

John 3:16 (chapter 3, verse 16 of the Gospel of John) is one of the most widely quoted verses from the Christian Bible. It has been called the "Bible in a nutshell" because it is considered a summary of some of the most important doctrines of Christianity:

For God so loved the world... - God is a God of love and this love motivates his action in the rest of the verse
...that he gave... - there was God giving something, his son as a sacrifice
...his only begotten Son... - the human Jesus of Nazareth is also the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity
...that whosoever... - that the salvation is open to all
...believeth... - being saved is based on belief or faith, rather than based on human works. However, belief is proved by ones works as one believes into Christ.
...in him... - the belief being in Jesus, the Saviour
...should not perish... - implies the fate of those who do not believe, that is the doctrine of hell
...but have everlasting life. - shows the reward of those who believe, that is the doctrine of heaven

(or... the Doctrine of faith)

Don't give up on me yet!

So if I did not beleive the Bible... and told a 15th century, devout Catholic man's children that I thought the bible was "wrong" or tried to influence a change away from their religion... the devout man would defend his kids based on his own want for their salvation... because if they "believe" me they would go to hell.

In this case religious belief is definitly both the "motivator" and "justification" for action.

Of course this doesn't mean that the man would kill me...

But, if he also beleived the Old testament (Deuteronomy chapter 13) he would be OBLIGATED to kill me. ( Motivation and justification. )

Based on this point I beleive that you are actually incorrect. BUT... as you said there MUST have been 'other' reasons why people went to war. Although this does explain why those who lead the crusades were considered "Defenders of the Faith" > Oddly suicide Bombers are seen in the same light in modern times.

Now that I look at it this way I can think of many who perished as they challenged scripture..Most of them were scientists of old.

Aw, man this just gets better.

Mainstream Judiasm does not have a concept of justification by faith.

John did not have a Trinity in mind when they wrote. The concept had not yet been invented.

Nor does 3:16 imply hell. Belief at the time would have indicated that many simply would not rise in the end of time, and stay dead since they did not deserve to live eternally. Their lives would end at mortal death, nothing more.

I quibble with this all since this is the problem of your whole argument. You can't get there from here...and you're picking up all sorts of anachronisms and particularities along the way. The end result is a description of these beleifs that is deeply twisted by your analytical framework.

I was right there with you until you got to the Old Testament. Let's keep with your analogy of a 15th Century devout Catholic man who you've told that the Bible is "wrong". I completely agree that this hypothetical guy would probably keep his kids away from you at the very least, especially considering that the 15th Century was the beginning of the Reformation and the Protestant churches. There may be one passage in the Old Testament that obligates him to kill me, but there are other passages that prohibit him from eating pork, and we know that there was certainly no such ban among Catholics at the time.

Let's look at that guy's neighbor, the devout Jew, who is going to ONLY subcribe to the Old Testament including Deuteronomy 13. Now, when you tell this same individual that you don't believe in the Bible and more specifically the Old Testament that he subscribes to, are you going to fear for your life. The obvious answer is no, and I don't see any reason where it would ever be yes except in circumstances that are outside the religious aspect (he wants to kill and rob you, he's a psychopath, etc.). Your basic premise is that the Old Testament commands death to nonbelievers, and the historical record just doesn't support that arguement. There is no record of Jewish armies wrecking havoc on their enemies and committing genocide against the unfaithful in the 15th Century or otherwise.

I don't see where you've faulted my logic or my arguement. There are certainly competing passages within the Old and New Testament concerning the treatment of nonbelievers, but individuals interprete them and discard the ones don't seem relevant. I don't think that there's been any sort of historical genocide, before or after the word was coined after the post WWI slaughter of the Armenians by the Turks, that was solely motivated by Scripture. Please point out what I've missed.

As far as the Crusades go, most of them were pretty blatant attempts to either annex territory from the Byzantines, go on plundering expeditions, defend the Byzantines or recapture territory lost from previous Crusdades. The men involved were most certainly considered "defenders of the faith", but that had little or nothing to do with why they went in the first place.

Suicide bombers typically aren't out to acheive martyrdom - that's a fringe benefit. They're out to inflict injury on their enemy. That's why the translation for "jihad" is "holy war". It's a war with motivations rooted very firmly in the secular world.

Well at least we are that close in our thinking... By the way I don't really fault your logic...except to say that, for the reasons I have mentioned above, those who spoke out against the church were threatened with death. and many were killed.

You asked me to show you a case where people were killed based on scripture... I did.

However... I must ask... how did AntiSemitism during the 1500's 1600's etc really work? Why did the average Anglican of the 1600's consider the jew to be "faithless"? The answer is that it says so ... right in the copy of the anglican prayer book I have here on my desk.(The "faithless" jew was not considered to have been saved by grace, consequently many were tortured by catholics or forced to convert (fact)) This happened in many parts of the world... not just spain.

Again.. there may have been other motivations lurking.. but they were still killed.

It wasn't till 1965, that that particular prayer book changed. (I have both versions) By the way the 1600's version was originally derived from the Catholic prayer book. At the back it describes the "Romish"(Means Catholic) faith as "repugnant". There is no question that these documents encouraged bigotry, the first step toward hatred...

So what's next
... I'll go online and look for as many examples of Anti semetic history as I can


Lets look and see how and why the Jews were persecuted...

man will kill whether or not religion plays a factor. it's instinctual and survival.

religion only provides one means to justify

the idea that it's cultural based I would believe to be inaccurate.

Nazi Germany, wasn't a characteristic of the worse Germans, it would a characteristic of the worst humans.

Religious anti-Semitism, or anti-Judaism. Before the 19th century, most anti-Semitism was primarily religious in nature, based on Christian or Islamic interactions with and interpretations of Judaism. Since Judaism was generally the largest minority religion in Christian Europe and much of the Islamic world, Jews were often the primary targets of religiously-motivated violence and persecution from Christian, and to a lesser degree, Islamic rulers. Unlike anti-Semitism in general, this form of prejudice is directed at the religion itself, and so generally does not affect those of Jewish ancestry who have converted to another religion, although the case of Conversos in Spain was a notable exception. Laws banning Jewish religious practices may be rooted in religious anti-Semitism, as were the expulsions of the Jews that happened throughout the Middle Ages.


Anti-Judaism in the New Testament
The New Testament is a collection of 'books' written by various authors. Most of this collection was written by the end of the first century. The majority of the New Testament was written by Jews who became followers of Jesus, and all but two books (Luke and Acts) are traditionally attributed to such Jewish followers. Nevertheless, there are a number of passages in the New Testament that some see as anti-Semitic, or have been used for anti-Semitic purposes, most notably:

Jesus speaking to a group of Pharisees: "I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did. ... You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But, because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is you are not of God." (John 8:37-39, 44-47, RSV)
Stephen speaking before a synagogue council just before his execution: "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it." (Acts 7:51-53, RSV)
"Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie -- behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet, and learn that I have loved you." (Revelation 3:9, RSV).
Some biblical scholars point out that Jesus and Stephen are presented as Jews speaking to other Jews, and that their use of broad accusation against Israel is borrowed from Moses and the later Jewish prophets (e.g. Deut 9:13-14; 31:27-29; 32:5, 20-21; 2 Kings 17:13-14; Is 1:4; Hos 1:9; 10:9). Jesus once calls his own disciple Peter 'Satan' (Mk 8:33). Other scholars hold that verses like these reflect the Jewish-Christian tensions that were emerging in the late first or early second century, and do not originate with Jesus. Today, nearly all Christian denominations de-emphasize verses such as these, and reject their use and misuse by anti-Semites.

Drawing from the Jewish prophet Jeremiah (Jer 31:31-34), the New Testament taught that with the death of Jesus a new covenant was established which rendered obsolete and in many respects superseded the first covenant established by Moses (Heb 8:7-13; Lk 22:20). Observance of the earlier covenant traditionally characterizes Judaism. This New Testament teaching, and later variations to it, are part of what is called supersessionism. However, the early Jewish followers of Jesus continued to practice circumcision and observe dietary laws, which is why the failure to observe these laws by the first Gentile Christians became a matter of controversy and dispute some years after Jesus' death (Acts 11:3; 15:1ff; 16:3).

The New Testament holds that Jesus' (Jewish) disciple Judas Iscariot (Mk 14:43-46), the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate along with Roman forces (Jn 19:11; Acts 4:27) and Jewish leaders and people of Jerusalem were (to varying degrees) responsible for the death of Jesus (Acts 13:27); Diaspora Jews are not blamed for events which were clearly outside their control.

After Jesus' death, the New Testament portrays the Jewish religious authorities in Jerusalem as hostile to Jesus' followers, and as occasionally using force against them. Stephen is executed by stoning (Acts 7:58). Before his conversion, Saul puts followers of Jesus in prison (Acts 8:3; Gal 1:13-14; 1 Tim 1:13). After his conversion, Saul is whipped at various times by Jewish authorities (2 Cor 11:24), and is accused by Jewish authorities before Roman courts (e.g., Acts 25:6-7). However, opposition from Gentiles is also cited repeatedly (2 Cor 11:26; Acts 16:19ff; 19:23ff). More generally, there are widespread references in the New Testament to suffering experienced by Jesus' followers at the hands of others (Rom 8:35;1 Cor 4:11ff; Gal 3:4; 2 Thess 1:5; Heb 10:32; 1 Pet 4:16; Rev 20:4).

[edit]
Early Christianity
A number of early and influential Church works -- such as the dialogues of Justin Martyr, the homilies of John Chrysostom, and the testimonies of church father Cyprian -- are strongly anti-Jewish.

During a discussion on the celebration of Easter during the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325, Roman emperor Constantine said

...it appeared an unworthy thing that in the celebration of this most holy feast we should follow the practice of the Jews, who have impiously defiled their hands with enormous sin, and are, therefore, deservedly afflicted with blindness of soul. (...) Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Saviour a different way.

Prejudice against Jews in the Roman Empire was formalized in 438, when the Code of Theodosius II established Roman Catholic Christianity as the only legal religion in the Roman Empire. The Justinian Code a century later stripped Jews of many of their rights, and Church councils throughout the sixth and seventh century, including the Council of Orleans, further enforced anti-Jewish provisions. These restrictions began as early as 305, when, in Elvira, (now Granada), a Spanish town in Andalusia, the first known laws of any church council against Jews appeared. Christian women were forbidden to marry Jews unless the Jew first converted to Catholicism. Jews were forbidden to extend hospitality to Catholics. Jews could not keep Catholic Christian concubines and were forbidden to bless the fields of Catholics. In 589, in Catholic Spain, the Third Council of Toledo ordered that children born of marriage between Jews and Catholic be baptized by force. By the Twelfth Council of Toledo (681) a policy of forced conversion of all Jews was initiated (Liber Judicum, II.2 as given in Roth). Thousands fled, and thousands of others converted to Roman Catholicism.

[edit]
Anti-Semitism in the Middle Ages

1239. In the course of a disputation, Pope Gregory IX ordered the Talmud burned (note a non-heretical book floating above the fire). A 15th century painting by Pedro Berruguete.In the Middle Ages a main justification of prejudice against Jews in Europe was religious. Though not part of Catholic dogma, many Christians, including members of the clergy, have held the Jewish people collectively responsible for killing Jesus (see Deicide), a practice originated by Melito of Sardis. As stated in the Boston College Guide to Passion Plays, "Over the course of time, Christians began to accept... that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for killing Jesus. According to this interpretation, both the Jews present at Jesus’ death and the Jewish people collectively and for all time, have committed the sin of deicide, or God-killing. For 1900 years of Christian-Jewish history, the charge of deicide has led to hatred, violence against and murder of Jews in Europe and America."[4] This accusation was repudiated in 1964, when the Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued the document Nostra Aetate as a part of Vatican II.

As the Black Death epidemics devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, rumors spread that Jews caused it by deliberately poisoning wells. Hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed by violence. "Never mind that Jews were not immune from the ravages of the plague; they were tortured until they "confessed" to crimes that they could not possibly have committed. In one such case, a man named Agimet was ... coerced to say that Rabbi Peyret of Chambery (near Geneva) had ordered him to poison the wells in Venice, Toulouse, and elsewhere. In the aftermath of Agimet’s "confession," the Jews of Strasbourg were burned alive on February 14, 1349. (Source: Jews: The Essence and Character of a People by Arthur Hertzberg and Aron Hirt-Manheimer, p.84)

Among socio-economic factors were restrictions by the authorities, local rulers and frequently church officials who closed many professions to the Jews, pushing them into marginal occupations considered socially inferior, such as local tax and rent collecting or moneylending, a necessary evil due to the increasing population and urbanization during the High Middle Ages. Catholic doctrine of the time held that moneylending for interest was a sin, and as such Jews tended to dominate this business. This provided support for claims that Jews are insolent, greedy, engaged in usury, and in itself contributed to a negative image. Natural tensions between creditors (typically Jews) and debtors (typically Christians) were added to social, political, religious and economic strains. Peasants who were forced to pay their taxes to Jews could personify them as the people taking their earnings while remaining loyal to the lords on whose behalf the Jews worked.

[edit]
The demonizing of the Jews
From around the 12th century through the 19th there were Christians who believed that some (or all) Jews possessed magical powers; some believed that they had gained these magical powers from making a deal with the devil. See also Judensau, Judeophobia.

[edit]
Blood libels
Main articles: blood libel, list of blood libels against Jews

On many occasions, Jews were accused of a blood libel, the supposed drinking of blood of Christian children in mockery of the Christian Eucharist. According to the authors of these blood libels, the 'procedure' for the alleged sacrifice was something like this: a child who had not yet reached puberty was kidnapped and taken to a hidden place. The child would be tortured by Jews, and a crowd would gather at the place of execution (in some accounts the synagogue itself) and engage in a mock tribunal to try the child. The child would be presented to the tribunal naked and tied and eventually be condemned to death. In the end, the child would be crowned with thorns and tied or nailed to a wooden cross. The cross would be raised, and the blood dripping from the child's wounds would be caught in bowls or glasses. Finally, the child would be killed with a thrust through the heart from a spear, sword, or dagger. Its dead body would be removed from the cross and concealed or disposed of, but in some instances rituals of black magic would be performed on it. This method, with some variations, can be found in all the alleged Christian descriptions of ritual murder by Jews.

The story of William of Norwich (d. 1144) is the first known case of ritual murder being alleged by a Christian monk while the story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln (d. 1255) said that after the boy was dead, his body was removed from the cross and laid on a table. His belly was cut open and his entrails removed for some occult purpose, such as a divination ritual. The story of Simon of Trent (d. 1475) emphasized how the boy was held over a large bowl so all his blood could be collected. Simon was regarded as a saint, and was canonized by Pope Sixtus V in 1588. The cult of Simon was disbanded in 1965 by Pope Paul VI, and the shrine erected to him was dismantled. He was removed from the calendar, and his future veneration was forbidden, though a handful of extremists still promote the narrative as a fact. In the 20th century, the Beilis Trial in Russia and the Kielce pogrom represented incidents of blood libel in Europe, while more recently blood libel stories have appeared a number of times in the state-sponsored media of a number of Arab nations, in Arab television shows, and on websites.

The Crusades
The Crusades were a series of several military campaigns sanctioned by the Papacy that took place during the 11th through 13th centuries. They began as Catholic endeavors to capture Jerusalem from the Muslims but developed into territorial wars.

The mobs accompanying the first three Crusades attacked the Jewish communities in Germany, France, and England, and put many Jews to death. Entire communities, like those of Treves, Speyer, Worms, Mayence, and Cologne, were slain during the first Crusade by a mob army. About 12,000 Jews are said to have perished in the Rhenish cities alone between May and July, 1096. Before the Crusades the Jews had practically a monopoly of trade in Eastern products, but the closer connection between Europe and the East brought about by the Crusades raised up a class of merchant traders among the Christians, and from this time onward restrictions on the sale of goods by Jews became frequent. The religious zeal fomented by the Crusades at times burned as fiercely against the Jews as against the Muslims, though attempts were made by bishops during the First crusade and the papacy during the Second Crusade to stop Jews from being attacked. Both economically and socially the Crusades were disastrous for European Jews. They prepared the way for the anti-Jewish legislation of Pope Innocent III, and formed the turning-point in the medieval history of the Jews.

Anti-Semitism in 19th and 20th century Catholicism
Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the Catholic Church still incorporated strong anti-Semitic elements, despite increasing attempts to separate anti-Judaism, the opposition to the Jewish religion on religious grounds, and racial anti-Semitism. Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) had the walls of the Jewish Ghetto in Rome rebuilt after the Jews were released by Napoleon, and Jews were restricted to the Ghetto through the end of the papacy of Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), the last Pope to rule Rome. Additionally, official organizations such as the Jesuits banned candidates "who are descended from the Jewish race unless it is clear that their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have belonged to the Catholic Church" until 1946. Brown University historian David Kertzer, working from the Vatican archive, has further argued in his book The Popes Against the Jews that in the 19th and 20th century the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good anti-Semitism" and "bad anti-Semitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of anti-Semitism. Kertzer's work is not, therefore, without critics; scholar of Jewish-Christian relations Rabbi David G. Dalin, for example, criticized Kertzer in the Weekly Standard for using evidence selectively. The Second Vatican Council, the Nostra Aetate document, and the efforts of Pope John Paul II have helped reconcile Jews and Catholicism in

Anti-Semitism and the Muslim world
Anti-Semitism within Islam is discussed in the article on Islam and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in the Arab World is discussed in the article on Arabs and anti-Semitism

The Qur'an, Islam's holy book, accuses the Jews of corrupting the Hebrew Bible. Muslims refer to Jews and Christians as a "People of the book"; Islamic law demands that when under Muslim rule they should be treated as dhimmis - from the Arab term ahl adh-dhimma. The writer Bat Ye'or introduced the modern word Dhimmitude as a generic indication of this Islamic attitude. Dhimmis were granted protection of life (including against other Muslim states), the right to residence, worship, and work or trade, and were exempted from military service, and Muslim religious duties, personal law and tax. They were obligated to pay other taxes (jizyah and land tax), and subject to various other restrictions regarding the contradiction of Islam, the Qur'an or Muhammad, proselytizing, and at times a number of other restrictions on dress, riding horses or camels, carrying arms, holding public office, building or repairing places of worship, mourning loudly, wearing shoes outside a Jewish ghetto, etc.

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim world increased in the twentieth century, as anti-Semitic motives and blood libels were imported from Europe and as resentment against Zionist efforts in British Mandate of Palestine spread. While anti-Semitism has certainly been heightened by the Arab-Israeli conflict, there were an increasing number of pogroms against Jews prior to the foundation of Israel, including Nazi-inspired pogroms in Algeria in the 1930s, and massive attacks on the Jews in Iraq and Libya in the 1940s (see Farhud). George Gruen attributes the increased animosity towards Jews in the Arab world to several factors including: The breakdown of the Ottoman Empire and traditional Islamic society; domination by Western colonial powers under which Jews gained a disproportionatly large role in the commercial, professional, and administrative life of the region; the rise of Arab nationalism, whose proponents sought the wealth and positions of local Jews through government channels; resentment over Jewish nationalism and the Zionist movement; and the readiness of unpopular regimes to scapegoat local Jews for political purposes.[7]

Anti-Zionist propaganda in the Middle East frequently adopts the terminology and symbols of the Holocaust to demonize Israel and its leaders. At the same time, Holocaust denial and Holocaust minimization efforts have found increasingly overt acceptance as sanctioned historical discourse in a number of Middle Eastern countries.

the crusades is man's flaw to have to validate their opinon, because we are not strong enough to believe that we may be wrong in things of this nature

I agree with you.... good point.

which could be argued as to why we ultimately kill. Religion is one excuse of several

RCA - I think that you're still missing the basic point here. You are arguing that the SOLE basis for the Crusades (and now anti-semitism) and other wars was religious doctrine. Please go back and read what you wrote in Post #59, specifically the second sentence of the first paragraph. The Crusades were all about territorial expansion and control of various chunks of real estate, whether Jerusalem or elsewhere. Remember that Arabs controlled trade with India and China at the time, and that this was at least in part an attempt to gain further control of that trade at the outset of the First Crusade.

I'm not sure why this has now devolved into a discussion into anti-semitism, but I'll jump into the fray. Again, your arguement that the SOLE basis for violent anti-semitism is religious, and I just can't accept that under any circumstances. Now I will grant that mob action is very different than what we've previously discussed, that being organized violence and warfare. It is certainly possible for a preacher to whip up an afternoon of violence on an otherwise slow day and convince people to go lynch some jews. However, an orchestrated and lengthy campaign such as what was seen in the Russian Bund in the late 19th Century had less to do with religion and more to do with distracting the non-jewish population during a time of stress. The Black Hundreds appeared as an offical governmentally sanction hate group to oppress revolutionaries, many of whom were jews, and that group is best known for their pogroms.

As far as mob violence goes, we're again faced with the difference between motivation and justification. The mob acts because they are dealing with a percieved threat or by revenge. There are very few reasons that violent mobs form. Once the violence is done, leaders may justify the actions using scripture, but standing on a street corner and screaming that the Old Testament commands Christians to kill nonbelievers would only get you odd looks on most days in most places. There are obvious exceptions, such as when rumors were sweeping St. Petersburg that Jews were responsible for Alexander II's assassination in 1881, but again, this violence was revenge for perceived sins.

Which has been my point all along.

Given the good that we know stems from religion it is impossible to make a universal statement that religion is all about "helping humans to kill each other."

People will kill for myriad reasons... religion is but one excuse. Remember that religions are created by people. People are falible. Why should you expect anything different?

Secular law has parts in it that allow us kill others and justify war. Religion is just another tool in the toolbox.

That said, secular law, like religion has does a lot of good as well. In fact, I would argue, they are mostly good, with some very bad examples. Bad examples that you are focusing on to the exclusion of the good.

*Tries to be patient with Martinguerre*



"Abraham was justified by faith, his faith was reckoned unto him as righteousness." Apparently, legend has it, that was before the deuterocannonical books were written.

Firstly... the trinity is not necessary for "justification by faith" in the old testament (old covenant). (in the NEW testament covenant, 'yes' the trinity is needed)

(Please dont confuse the doctrine I refer to with the catholic commuinity called the "community of the doctrine of faith", they have a whole other purpose.)

I mean doctrine in the simplest theologoical sense: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school.

"Abraham believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).

So righteousness was needed... but faith did the trick... hence the beginnings of the doctrine of faith. The story of abaham is the source of the doctrine in which "FAITH" was a means of salvation.

"By faith Abraham, even though he was past age – and Sarah herself was barren – was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise" (Hebrews 11:11). (new testament...)

THE STORY OF ABRAHAM IS THE SOURCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF FAITH.
It originated in the OLD testament writings. Old testament Law was written in the deuterocanonical books, the same books that recorded the story of Abraham (for the first time)

Now that that is out of the way...

According to Rabbinic Judaism
Gehenna is fairly well defined in rabbinic literature. It is sometimes translated as "Hell", but this doesn't effectively convey its meaning. In Judaism, Gehenna is not hell, but rather a sort of Purgatory where one is judged based on their life's deeds. The Kabbalah describes it as a "waiting room" (commonly translated as an "entry way") for all souls (not just the wicked). The overwhelming majority of rabbinic thought maintains that people are not in Gehenna forever; the longest that one can be there is said to be 12 months. Some consider it a spiritual forge where the soul is purified for its eventual ascent to Olam Habah (heb. עולם הבא; lit. "The world to come", often viewed as analogous to Heaven). This is also mentioned in the Kabbalah, where the soul is described as breaking, like the flame of a candle lighting another: the part of the soul that ascends being pure, and the "unfinished" piece being reborn.

Geenna (or Gehenna) is the name of a real place. It comes from Hebrew and means "Gorge of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom)". This gorge can still be visited today near Jerusalem. In the time of the Old Testament it was a place where children were sacrificed to the Ammonite god Molech (2 Kings 23,10)(Old testament). That cultic practice was, according to the Old Testament, imitated by King Solomon in the 10th Century B.C.E. and under the leadership of king Manasseh in the 7th Century B.C.E. and in times of crisis until the time of exile of the Jews in Babylon (6th Century B.C.E.). The prophet Jeremiah, who condemned that cult strictly, called the valley the "gorge of killing" (Jeremiah 7,31-32; 19,5-9). Gehenna became later a central garbage dump, to stop the practice of child sacrifice. At the turn of the 1st Century C.E. the gorge was used also to burn the dead bodies of criminals after their execution. The imagination of burning dead bodies probably inspired Jewish, and later Christian theologians to translate that place into the word "hell".

He's the Catch... If they do not go to heaven (as a result of thier sins against God) where do they go? Gehenna for 12 months? As some have said they just lie in the ground. Or do they "burn" as the historical account, above, says? If you had to choose between gehenna and eternal life with God... wouldn't you be choosing between heaven and hell? It's not even a stretch as you say it is.

If you were a faithful man from days of Old which would you choose. The spiritual forge? or "heaven"?

By the way Martinguerre: Eisegesis is the approach to Bible interpretation where the interpreter tries to "force" the Bible to mean something that fits their existing belief or understanding of a particular issue or doctrine. People who interpret the Bible this way are usually not willing to let the Bible speak for itself and let the chips fall where they may. They set off with the up-front goal of trying to prove a point they already believe in, and everything they read and interpret is filtered through that paradigm. Stated another way, they engage in what the Bible refers to as "private interpretation"

Honestly... Martinguerre I sense this about your arguments.

Here are just a few of the translations of John 3:16.. Now that you understand what hell is, in a theological sense, perhaps you'll see these in a slightly different Light.

Translation John 3:16 Greek

Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλ᾽ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον. ( I can't read greek either)

American Standard Version
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Amplified Bible
For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.

Contemporary English Version
God loved the people of this world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who has faith in him will have eternal life and never really die.

English Standard Version
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Geneva Bible
For God so loved the world, that he hath given his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have euerlasting life.

GOD'S WORD
God loved the world this way: He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life.

Good News Translation
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.

International Standard Version
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his unique Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

Jerusalem Bible
Yes, God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.

King James Version For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

HSV For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

The Living Bible
For God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The Message This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life.

New American Bible
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.

New American Standard Bible
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.

New American Standard Bible Update
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

New English Bible
God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life.

New English Translation
For this is the way God loved the world: he gave his one and only Son that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

New International Version For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

New Jerusalem Bible For this is how God loved the world: he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

New King James Version For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

New Living Translation For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

New Revised Standard Version
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

New Simplified Bible
For God loved the world so much, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever has an active faith (believes) in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

New World Translation
For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.

Revised English Bible
God so loved the world that he gave he gave his only son that everyone who has faith in him may not perish buy have eternal life

Revised Standard Version
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Revised Version
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Today's New International Version
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

William Tyndale
For God so loveth the world, that he hath given his only son, that none that believe in him, should perish: but should have everlasting life.

World English Bible
For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

The Word on the Street Cos
God's so passionate about the planet that he donates his one and only Son. Whoever invests their life in his Son doesn't die, but gets given this limitless life.

JAZZ,, Charlatan et al.

If you got the impression that I think religion is the SOLE reason why people kill... I can't figure why... MY original post says "Systems of religious belief help humans to kill each other." Of course there are other reasons... I am not sure but I think someone else said it earlier...

Whatever the case is.. I agree with you... it's not the ONLY reason... but we all know it is one more reason... Really this is what I was trying to say..

BY the way... you are all a fun bunch to chat with...

Sometimes, when I think about why I am an atheist, the discussions I end up in seem so odd.


HAVE GREAT DAY EVERYONE!

FINALLY, why did I include a bunch of historical bits about Antisemitism?

Because each of them describes how the Jews were/are not tolerated based on their "religious" beleifs. If you would like, I can also post a whole other pile about why the Jews were/are not tolerated based on their RACE.

Someone (can't remember who) challenged me to show just one example of religious intolerance resulting in killing... I gave you a whole bunch..

as an atheist, i view death as the absolute end. i believe there is no life after death, which has consequently given me a higher respect and value on a person's life. i view the span of a human's life seems extremely short; where regretting anything and not living a full life is something i fear just as much as a christian would the devil.
also as a passivist, i truly do not believe anyone one this earth should have their life taken from them. whether by murder, war, crimnal punishment, etc.
as far as religion helping humans to kill eachother, i do find some examples of this to be rather hard to avoid. in particular, the direct attacks toward abortion clinics and patients are almost always connected to religous groups. there is a common rationalization that abortion is against god's will, and it is his people's duty to get rid of such sinners.
[and perhaps i should clarify that i do not view a fetus as a human being. they have not yet been born, and are therefore not yet a being. but to each his own]

honestly though, is there really any moral rationalization for murder? in general human instinct and overall good morals. to use one's god as a reason to kill another is almost contradictory. in some relgions, though not all, a god is seen as a creator of everything. so, to kill one of his creations [especially humans, who are regarded as the top of the food chain] would be to defy one's creator and god. with religion as a catalyst, should that person who killed another also deserve to die? for god?
quite the snowball effect. i dont agree with that, but it seems pretty contradictory.

im just kind of building my thoughts as i go along. i think i got somewhere.. hahaha. i just wanted to comment on the issue.

This is...without a doubt in my mind....the absolute truth

I guess what we are also reacting to is that many who make this arguement get a bit myopic in their statements of war and religion.

They tend to make it the only purpose of religion. Reading back you have avoided this but not come out and said it specificlly until further on.

I suspect this is where the confusion stems.

Charlatan.... I really enjoyed the debate! You helped me clarify a lot in this topic... thanks!!!

Just a quick note:

It is assumed to be muslim fundamentalists but there were 400 Jewish people who were phoned as to not come to work this day. Muslims don't do such things as I live in Lebanon and there are many areas with muslims here. They are nice, forgiving, people who live along with christian neighbors and get along.

Note: I respect Jewish, Christian, and Muslim people and consider them all to be good people. The 400 Jews who didn't go to work in the world trade centers is just the news i heard and doesn't reflect any view or opinion on Jews.

Congratulations, you've heard an urban rumor. http://www.snopes.com/rumors/israel.htm

Are you naive enough to think that none of these Jews would tell their gentile friends that an attack was coming? Or are you just a dumbass? I knew 5 guys at Aon Re that were in South Tower, and 2 of them were Jewish. None of them made it out alive. You obviously have an agenda and an opinion by posting this shit here, and I'm about as offended as I get by this kind of post. Go crawl back into your anti-semitic hole and try to get your facts straight.