This is unironically the case in the muslim world today. Different groups killing each other in the bloodiest ways over the most miniscule differences.
The potential for an explosive event full of horror is always there, because all of the Abrahamic faiths say that only they are magically wise, and the “other” is worthy of death.
That scriptural endorsement has been and always will be fuel for the stupid and violent to do what they are naturally inclined to do. The Bible, Koran, and Tanakh all claim the same thing. “You are granted special magic super brain powers; they are stupid, inferior, and damned”.
So, the “they” always has motivation and even a moral imperative to kill the “other”.
… and to this day, these “faiths” are tax free. they’re all fabulously wealthy, but still, we must pay fealty
And this was different for Christianity, you think? Even today there is still violence though be it less than, say, a few hundred years ago. Basically people became leas religious and stopped accepting the bullshit religious hate and the violence that came with it
Yup, which is extremely similar to Christians and their “European wars of religion” that had them slaughtering each other for hundreds of years, and more recently “the Troubles” until 1998.
Jews aren’t above it either, though their examples are more biblical and not nearly the same body count. The Samaritans and the schism that turned into Christianity come to mind.
The troubles definitely had religious overtones and justifications, but it was a war about colonial control and cultural repression. You’d be hard pressed to find a British soldier who was fighting to defend protestantism instead of “the empire” or the queen, and you’d be hard pressed to find an IRA member who cared more about Catholic dominance in Ireland than independence.
The wars of religion basically used religion as a cudgel in a fight to dominate Europe and over tensions between the power centers of the Vatican and European royal courts. Entirely political but with religious marketing and pageantry.
Even the Sunni/Shia conflict, most Sunnis and Shias around the world have no issue with each other. Most of the time there’s violence assigned to sectarianism, it’s just like Ireland and Europe, that sectarian divide is inflamed by bad actors instigating artificial tensions and then using them to justify political and economic conquest. ISIS wanted to get rich by snapping up all the oil fields in a largely lawless region. Iran wants regional political dominance and economic control over the straight of hormuz. Israel wants to control the entire Middle East apparently. All of them have religious overtones to the conflict but the religion isn’t the reason for the conflict.
The last real religious wars were the crusades. Europe stood to gain nothing but “God’s favor” by taking back the holy land, it was nothing but a burden to repeatedly invade and fund intermittently occupying. Going back further, Muhammad’s early Muslim conquests are another example of a true “religious war”.
Weren’t the crusades also just a Papal project to reduce the intensity of European wars by dumping excess military capacity into colonising the Middle East?
Partly. The first Crusade had a lot to do with the Seljuks winning at Manizkert, which left the Byzantines needing help from Western Europe to take back their lands. They also wanted to direct knights violence at a common enemy as you said, but from the soldiers and knights to the 4 princes to Peter the hermit and Pope Urban II, all of them truly believed they were religiously called to reclaim the holy land. It’s kind of the opposite of those modern conflicts, it was a religious war with political overtones. The balance of religion and politics as motivating factors is different for each crusade.
Similarly, you could make an argument that Muhammed was motivated in his early conquests by political and territorial ambition, but he and his followers truly believed they were following divine orders. There’s always a mix of the two in those conflicts and it’s a sliding scale.
I mean Hindus are also like this. The amount hatred and violence over being born into different casts is disgusting, though I’m not as familiar with it or other religions. I come from an islamic background
This is unironically the case in the muslim world today. Different groups killing each other in the bloodiest ways over the most miniscule differences.
Shia vs Sunni, Catholic vs Protestant, and so on.
The potential for an explosive event full of horror is always there, because all of the Abrahamic faiths say that only they are magically wise, and the “other” is worthy of death.
That scriptural endorsement has been and always will be fuel for the stupid and violent to do what they are naturally inclined to do. The Bible, Koran, and Tanakh all claim the same thing. “You are granted special magic super brain powers; they are stupid, inferior, and damned”.
So, the “they” always has motivation and even a moral imperative to kill the “other”.
… and to this day, these “faiths” are tax free. they’re all fabulously wealthy, but still, we must pay fealty
And this was different for Christianity, you think? Even today there is still violence though be it less than, say, a few hundred years ago. Basically people became leas religious and stopped accepting the bullshit religious hate and the violence that came with it
Ban all religions
Don’t ban it, they only flourish. The banning grants them legitimacy.
Tax it. Stop making exceptions for them. It will die all on its own.
Sunday bloody Sunday isn’t that far off
It’s weird that you can’t see that the metaphor is for all religions.
Here’s a great one to make you think about Christianity’s version.
*New link, same joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANNX_XiuA78
Who is NickSawRickShaw and why is that a message link to him
you underestimate Shia/Sunni animosity.
The Shi’a Sunni sectarianism was helped (at least in Syria) by the US government.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html
it was a thing for centuries before that
Yup, which is extremely similar to Christians and their “European wars of religion” that had them slaughtering each other for hundreds of years, and more recently “the Troubles” until 1998.
Jews aren’t above it either, though their examples are more biblical and not nearly the same body count. The Samaritans and the schism that turned into Christianity come to mind.
The troubles definitely had religious overtones and justifications, but it was a war about colonial control and cultural repression. You’d be hard pressed to find a British soldier who was fighting to defend protestantism instead of “the empire” or the queen, and you’d be hard pressed to find an IRA member who cared more about Catholic dominance in Ireland than independence.
The wars of religion basically used religion as a cudgel in a fight to dominate Europe and over tensions between the power centers of the Vatican and European royal courts. Entirely political but with religious marketing and pageantry.
Even the Sunni/Shia conflict, most Sunnis and Shias around the world have no issue with each other. Most of the time there’s violence assigned to sectarianism, it’s just like Ireland and Europe, that sectarian divide is inflamed by bad actors instigating artificial tensions and then using them to justify political and economic conquest. ISIS wanted to get rich by snapping up all the oil fields in a largely lawless region. Iran wants regional political dominance and economic control over the straight of hormuz. Israel wants to control the entire Middle East apparently. All of them have religious overtones to the conflict but the religion isn’t the reason for the conflict.
The last real religious wars were the crusades. Europe stood to gain nothing but “God’s favor” by taking back the holy land, it was nothing but a burden to repeatedly invade and fund intermittently occupying. Going back further, Muhammad’s early Muslim conquests are another example of a true “religious war”.
Weren’t the crusades also just a Papal project to reduce the intensity of European wars by dumping excess military capacity into colonising the Middle East?
Partly. The first Crusade had a lot to do with the Seljuks winning at Manizkert, which left the Byzantines needing help from Western Europe to take back their lands. They also wanted to direct knights violence at a common enemy as you said, but from the soldiers and knights to the 4 princes to Peter the hermit and Pope Urban II, all of them truly believed they were religiously called to reclaim the holy land. It’s kind of the opposite of those modern conflicts, it was a religious war with political overtones. The balance of religion and politics as motivating factors is different for each crusade.
Similarly, you could make an argument that Muhammed was motivated in his early conquests by political and territorial ambition, but he and his followers truly believed they were following divine orders. There’s always a mix of the two in those conflicts and it’s a sliding scale.
I mean Hindus are also like this. The amount hatred and violence over being born into different casts is disgusting, though I’m not as familiar with it or other religions. I come from an islamic background
Caste isn’t formally used in India anymore, was abolished a while ago. Could be a cultural thing but that will fade with time
From what I’ve been told it’s still a pretty persistent cultural problem, but I’m not Indian, so take that with a grain of salt.
The Thirty Year War was quite a while ago but until fairly recently there was real animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Germany.
“Today”
Isn’t it the crusades as well?