Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "Killing someone else in the *name* of religion is very different than killing someone else *because* of religion."
As far as I can tell, the record for doing this is still held by the Germans and the Germans sure ain't Moslem. I would think that 2nd, 3rd and 4th place would be in the hands of some of the Communist regimes.
The fracas in the Middle East is supposedly religious on both sides, but the real issues are the control of land and law, and these are things that man has fought over forever. The same applies to Northern Ireland. When religious differences distinguish the participants the conflict is called a religious one and that's very natural. When someone is killed they are buried and something religious is said.
But that doesn't mean that in the absence of religion no one would have been killed. Atheistic countries go to war with one another as (famously) do Buddhist and every other religion. The history of this planet is soaked in blood, and only the very very weak do not have a history of killing. And recent advances in technology (along with reductions in the willingness of advanced nations to use mass killing as a weapon) have given even the weak methods of killing. It's not a Moslem trait, it is quite universal, and the largest single predictor of killing in the human species is --- yes, ability.
Re: "It doesn't take much to separate out motivations, if you're honest, careful, and patient."
Yes, everyone agrees with this, but it turns out that the empty aphorism applies to all sides. Everyone thinks that they're in the right (usually because the other side hit back before they did).
Re: "Killing someone else in the *name* of religion is very different than killing someone else *because* of religion. It might not feel any different if you are the victim, but it makes a great deal of difference when you're attempting to understand the motive, and prevent such murders in the future."
After going on and on about the tendency of social systems to kill, I would be remiss if I did not mention that I think that individually, humans tend to be inclined towards peace. To convince them to kill requires a lot of socialization.
The US is a multi-religious society and has great difficulty using religion as a motivation for killing. So it is hardly surprising that we do not press that particular button. It would be sort of like a guy in a glass house practicing stone throwing.
Different societies do the socialization in different manners but the result is the same. The US now trains its soldiers to kill automatically without thinking, which turns out to be the most effective way. Back in WW2 part of our socialization was to dehumanize the enemy.
In societies that have relatively strong religious ties (like the native Irish in Ireland or the Moslems in the Middle East) it is not at all surprising that they would use religion as a motivation for killing. To expect the opposite would be odd.
For example, in WW2 the Japanese used the national religion to motivate soldiers, and the Western world is filled with the same thing. The US civil war saw the introduction of "In God we trust" on our coinage. Before that time, it was thought that money was too dirty to be used as a medium to invoke God's name, but the necessity of convincing all that cannon fodder to die overcame.
Let me see, what's an appropriate way to end this post?
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
-- Carl |
