Religion's link to wars

[nickelfire]

Religion's worldwide usually preach peace and mutual understanding, the major ones in particular, Christianity's love thy neighbor, or the Jewish general abhorring of violence written somewhere in the Kabbalah, Muslim's clearly advocate non-violence in the Qur'an, I don't know much about the Asian culture but I'm certain the Buddha or Confucius never said: Kill thy neighbor.
Despite this, war's are constantly linked to religion, Religion itself, in its infant stages, was the chief reason for the first war's among men.
Christianity has a history of fanatical wars, more gruesome then most, all directly linked to the finality of their beliefs, and claiming all their deeds as the will of god or Jesus.
The Jewish-Muslim conflict is a dispute formerly among 'Brothers' Israel and Ishmael.
China has a death pocked history of mass executions in the millions, and war casualties unlike anything most countries come near to comparison with. I'm not sure how linked to religion these were but I'm sure it wasn't unrelated.
Africa also, is a hotbed of raids and mass destruction and assassination, whether it be a result of totem worship or something entirely unrelated, these conflicts have been raging for Milena.
Today, I find it hard to believe that all these cultures figured it was God's will to kill or annihilate the people who live next door. However, life back then was very different from where it is today, people in general and majority, were not educated much if at all, and the church, or sacred writings may have been but a tool for those in power to wield when they needed to drum up men for a war. Perhaps it was some other way or a mixture of those ways, or perhaps they all really felt that it was the will of god...
If all the war was to be blamed on Religion or not, it is a main cause for death and conflict in countless areas of the world.
I'm not against religion, this is up for debate.
What do you think?

[Magnet Man]

There is an essential aggressive impulse inherited from our rodent forebears, built into the human psyche. (All rats will fight if they are cornered.) Aggression is primarily needed for territorial protection. There is a smidgeon required for establishing one's social heirarchal postion. Finally there is the question of predation. We are not purely herbivorous. The omnivorous capabilities of our digestive tracts, allow for a mix of vegetation and meat. We have hunted for meat on a limited basis for hundreds of millions of years. Success at predation requires various degrees of aggressive impulse. Primates, being mainly vegetarian are no where near as aggressive as pure carniverous predators, like lions or wolves.

Modern warfare has unnaturally distorted the human psyche far beyond the natural bounds of our original aggressive instincts. The history of this acceleration goes back to the beginning of the Bronze Age, when man was forced to domesticate Nature in order to continue to expand our numbers. Domesticating flocks of wild sheep and goats and herds of wild cattle, pitted man against far more aggressive predators, who came to prey on our stock.

The challenge posed by lions prides was the most severe. Man had to use his brains as well as evoke an ethic of courage, far greater than that of the ape, in order to face a six hundred pound cat with little more than a spear. (See circumcision guilds) Lion fighting guilds were the fore-runners of warrior regiments. Warrior regiments were formed when clans clashed in border disputes. Clan vendetta escalated into outright warfare when over-population forced national amalgamations. National wars escalated when the Old World became over-populated. Nuclear warfare became an international reality when advanced technology artificially shrank the globe.

Man is capable of returning to his natural meeker primate self. If we use our large brain to make the world expand in a manner that shows all of us how it can support infinite growth, without territorial infringement, the instinct to fight for territorial rights will gradually subside to reasonable limits again.

Religious wars are simply a pseudo-intellectually atificial stimulation of the underlying original agressive instinstincs all of which are related to territorial protection, social position and a propensity towards over indulging in hedonism.

[nickelfire]

Thanks for the reply MM, I appreciate it.
I know that most wars are certainly a cause of expansion and protection of land due to over population and the like, as you said. I was only referring to religions role in, I guess, a smaller portion of those. Israel, being a prime example, is the center of religious squabbles, where far to many dogma's collide. Obviously the population and land issue comes into play but it goes much deeper then that. Over the centuries, countless souls have fought and died over it, and still fight and die over it, my question was whether the reason (being a dispute over land, that is in my opinion, a little too holy) was a good one to die over, or is it as MM says an entirely pseudo-intellectual embodiment of a desire for worldly things. The Crusades for example, which to me seemed like a purely religious dispute.
Anyway, I'm just throwing these out here, Not being very affiliated with the Jews or Palestinians or Christians etc... I was wondering what anyone has to say on this subject.
Thanks for the feedback

[Magnet Man]

The war between the sons of Abraham in Israel/Palestine is a classic example of an atavistic territorial dispute. The artificial claims of scriptural rights only exacerbate the situation and place the whole world in danger of initiating a thermo-nuclear war.

One can respect the ancestral rights of all people to have a traditional homeland. But, with the blurring of races and ethnic affiliations during the internationalizing process that took place in the colonial era, the time has come for all of us to to transcend Bronze Age vendettas and out-dated competitive national ideologies.

We all need to realize that planet Earth is our traditional homeland and that the entire human race is a single family, with a common origin and a common destination.

The global enviroment is under increasing stress, while we war with each other.

We need to think outside the gun and get on with the job of turning the whole planet into a cultivated Garden of Eden, with no borders anywhere.

[nickelfire]

Thanks MM, I think that clears the topic up for me thanks again

[soulatom]

admin said:

The war between the sons of Abraham in Israel/Palestine is a classic example of an atavistic territorial dispute. The artificial claims of scriptural rights only exacerbate the situation and place the whole world in danger of initiating a thermo-nuclear war.

About this conflict in particular, it is my understanding that now the Palestinians, after the Isrealis have withdrawn, are turning on themselves. Faction against faction. Every time I hear about this situation the hole that they are digging is just getting deeper and deeper. Scriptural dogma and political ideologies only being a smoke screen for the more base human need of personal equality and survival instinct to occupy a space.

[soulatom]

admin said:

One can respect the ancestral rights of all people to have a traditional homeland. But, with the blurring of races and ethnic affiliations during the internationalizing process that took place in the colonial era, the time has come for all of us to to transcend Bronze Age vendettas and out-dated competitive national ideologies.

We all need to realize that planet Earth is our traditional homeland and that the entire human race is a single family, with a common origin and a common destination.

The global enviroment is under increasing stress, while we war with each other.

We need to think outside the gun and get on with the job of turning the whole planet into a cultivated Garden of Eden, with no borders anywhere.

This brings to mind another situation on the forefront in America right now. What about the increasing conflict between Mexico and the US. It seems that this particular conflict doesn't all into the category of colonialism and Bronze Age vandettas, and competitive national ideologies. This involves territorial tresspass earlier in the history of the development of the land and aeems now to translate to a economic imperative. It is bloated with controversial dialogue and in many cases ever increasing violence. Would like to hear how you weigh in on this ..

[Magnet Man]

soulatom said:

This brings to mind another situation on the forefront in America right now. What about the increasing conflict between Mexico and the US. It seems that this particular conflict doesn't all into the category of colonialism and Bronze Age vandettas, and competitive national ideologies. This involves territorial tresspass earlier in the history of the development of the land and aeems now to translate to a economic imperative. It is bloated with controversial dialogue and in many cases ever increasing violence. Would like to hear how you weigh in on this ..

As a South African ex-patriate, both the agony and the irony of the current American debate over illegal immigrants coming from Mexico, brings home many unpleasant memories.

The world at large was outraged by the rigid passbook laws that the South African authorities enforced during the apartheid era. If a black was caught in any white-built and white-owned town or city without a passbook, which stated the name and address of their employer, they were immediately deported back to their tribal homeland.

The reasons for instituting the passbook laws in South Africa were basically the same that disgruntled American's are giving here. With a vast impoverished nation on one's borders, the fear was that too many jobs would be taken away from legitimate citizens, and the infrastructure was not designed or funded to support a vast influx of illegal migrants who paid no taxes.

One of the moral arguments against the passbook laws was that all Africans had the right to work anywhere in South Africa. The white's conquered territory that was traditionally once theirs.

That same territorial argument is pertinent throughout the South West in America.

So the moral question is: All the other immoral racist laws not withstanding, if enforcing passports for work was wrong in South Africa in order to protect jobs and city infrastructures, why is it right here in America?

[Jupiter]

Alright MM, you have made a point here which I guess could apply to just about any place on earth. But what about this territorial infringement issue. Say if someone walked into your house and opened you refrigerator and started eating your food, then they moved their family in, then they asked you to take them to the doctor and pay for it because they are sick.....how would you deal with that, and isnt that what this all boils down to? I don't mena to minimize the issue but let's just break it down to realistic terms, could you on a personal level really allow that?

[Magnet Man]

jupiter said:

Alright MM, you have made a point here which I guess could apply to just about any place on earth. But what about this territorial infringement issue. Say if someone walked into your house and opened you refrigerator and started eating your food, then they moved their family in,

40 years ago I spent some time with a Kalahari Bushman hunter/gatherer family group. Though always on the edge of starvation, I noticed that there was an invisible boundary between each family's hunting territory. They never crossed that line.

Trespassing on another's territory, especially their food larder, is instinctively taboo to all organic life. Your neighbor would never raid your fridge unless he/she was dysfunctional.

Locking our doors and posting a policeman at the gate is not the natural cure for modern trespass.

See the Heartstart home-school education curriculum for the long-term cure for modern dysfunction. Check out. www.globalstewardship.org.

[lavender1]

thanks for a good thread so far.

it should perhaps help a heated debate on many forums to differentiate between christianity and christendom.
christianity is the "religious movement" that seems to steer and stir many human beings in their various organisations of themselves as christendom.

books.google.com/books?id=hT44DTMNxvwC&dq=christianity+and+christendom&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=8H-RS7ziIYiOnQO9rMyNCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=12&ved=0CC8Q6AEwCw#v=onepage&q=&f=false