Many a war has been fought in the name of religion - remember the Crusades?

Communist cultures.

BIBI,

I presume that you are referring not to the various communist parties, which are political organizations, but rather to that quality in a society arising from its excellence (or at least active practice) in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, sports, etc. The United States is, on occasion, considered to have a Cowboy, or even a Gun culture, and France’s culture is associated, at least in my mind, with fine dining.

As religious practices preceded, were concurrent with, and remain following the downfall of that brand of communism practiced in the eastern portion of Europe in the last century, I think a case could be made that communism proved less attractive than religion to that population.

While it would be unfair to say the same for the variant of communism practiced in the PRC yet, it is true that the current Chinese Communist Party has changed quite a bit from the one which brought the joys of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution to that population. During that period, Chinese religious practices have not changed nearly as dramatically.

If these communist cultures are not examples, then which others would usefully serve industrialized nations such as yours, mine, or Loulabelle’s?

I hate to correct you when you are agreeing with me Scotz but wasn't it Isaac & Ishmael?

Booger, I've always thought spelling is irrelevant when the name has been translated from another language which has a different alphabet....the only right way to spell it is surely in the original alphabet it was written in......just my take on it, anyway. :p

ROFL :D

I don't think the issues here are spelling lol............... at least not to me.





(I guess you already know spelling isn't an issue to me) lmao

Now ain't THAT the truth! :D

Whoops...I was working from memory, & didn't didn't do my fact check first, but I hope everybody got the idea anyway...

What does Islam have to do with white whales? :confused:

There are none I know of either.

As BruceandNan stated, everyone believes what they were taught by their elders while growing up. This means that it is extremely difficult to get away from religion completely, because we are taught religion as truth. As the Jesuits said, "Give us a boy, and we shall return you a man, a citizen of his country and a child of God”.

Some of us ask more questions as we grow up, and of those, there are some who care enough to think about what we have been taught and draw our own conclusions (at both ends of the argument). Unfortunately, probably a large majority do not give it enough thought and (passively) adopt the famous agnostic approach (and I paraphrase) "it is best to believe as, if there is a god, you get into paradise, and if not, nothing is lost".

With that attitude it is difficult to break the cycle.

Would an atheist society work? I don't know, but society is not perfect now, and it would remove a number of problems....

It's not any individual society that "doesn't work", per se. It's the interaction between different societies and the inability to accept or negotiate common ground that is at the root of the problems occuring globally. And that boils down to respect for those that one does not understand.

In my opinion, an all Atheist world would be no different from a world inhabited by all Christians/Muslims/Hindus or members of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind. It's not without problems, but generally much easier to get along if all think alike.

Loulabelle it wasn't how he spelled Ishmael that I was questioning it was that he had Israel insted of Isaac. Trust my I have no room to throw stones in the spelling department as many here can tell you.

[QUOTE=WildIrish]It's not any individual society that "doesn't work", per se. It's the interaction between different societies and the inability to accept or negotiate common ground that is at the root of the problems occuring globally. And that boils down to respect for those that one does not understand.

I completely agree with what WI said. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? If people would just respect the beliefs of others this world would be better off, everyone is entittled to the own opinions.

My comrade in keys. ;)

Oops sorry Booger! That'll teach me to check what I've read first! LOL

Just ignore the pregnant lady.... :p

how about if we hug the pregnant lady instead!

Hehehehe - er...I'm sure that would be fine. :D

Bonjour Jacques!

oui oui

I think it is important that we remember those with the guns unfortunately become the visible representation of the people.

One person with a loud voice can influence 20 people, one person with a machine gun can generally control 100.

This is seen through the minority of extremist/violent muslims which we tend to stereotype as the whole. This is seen through a President in George Bush or other visible/powerful republicans like Pat Robertson (I only say republicans because they currently lead all three branches of gour overnment, this is not to promote either democrats or republicans). Through Republican abuses and hypocritical uses of power, they ensure that the world as a whole stereoptypes America and American Christianity for what the present administration represents instead of what its constituency (the vast majority) truly represents. I wonder if as a result of this pressure from our leaders (those with the "guns") and the world, many American's are increasingly changing their perspectives to become what the world thinks we are. Its the same with much of America who sees the gang violence in Ghetto's and stereotypes all people who live in Ghettos to be the same uneducated and grossly violent people simply because of how they speak or dress being influenced, again, by those they fear just like everyone else (the ones with the guns).

Then don't even mention the press and how they reinforce these stereotypes. How often do you seek an African American on TV being applauded instead of denagrated. The Black Muslim community does a lot of good work for this country, yet all we hear about them through the media are how they are militant and anti-semetic. 100 out of 100 times the media will report the bad over the good, to the extent it looks for the bad in the smallest shadows and steps right over the good in the brightest light of day. Unfortunately, it is a psychological truth that when you are told you are something enough, you not only believe you are that thing, but you become it and act like it.

Lastly, I am not saying there is justification or extremists are in the right, but I think anyone who feels that they are in a corner will choose an extremist point of view. It is always much easier to choose black or white then the grey. In every culture group there are fanatics, moderates, and apathetics. There are some who all they have ever know is fanaticsm. There are some who were moderates and became extremists because they got tired of not seeing results, didn't want to become apathetics and just take it, and needed some way to make their voices heard. Then there are apathetics who becomes extremists because of experiencing great trauma (such as losing a loved one or seeing war first hand, a common occurence in the middle east these days). I am not saying there is an excuse for becoming an extremist, because I believe there is always another way. However, at least you can see how it might happen, particularly when all you see around you is black and white, and grey is heracy (as it is in the Koran and in American politics).

The problem right now is there is the "we hit you, so you hit us back and vice-versa" mentality in the world right now. So the world is in a merry-go-round constantly pushing each other in a corner forcing the other to choose the opposing side of black or white. The more we fight, the more engrained in those corners we become and the more adamant we believe that our corner (or our choice of black or white) is the correct one. I don't believe I have ever seen this country more polarized except when we were fanatical about communism (resulting in the attrocity of the McCarthy hearings) and the Muslim world has never been this fanaticized (because they didn't have the common enemy, didn't have martars, and didn't have leadership prior to Western politics).

That's my (long) take anyways.

Which were almost as attrocious as the McCarthy movies! :D


/me hugs the pregnant lady

Bonjour Jacques!

I remember that movie. :D


( I saw Edger’s lips move. ;) )

I only wish they were Jenny's lips we saw moving. :hot:

There is a lot of sense in what you say, Calihotguy.

And WI, I am in no way suggesting that an atheist world would be perfect. I quite simply believe that we would be rid of religious hatred, which is a single step forward. We would then be able to concentrate on race, sexuality and economics, which are probably bigger issues.



That's right. The problem with religion is that each thinks they are right, but that not all can be, hence the Islam vs fundamentalist Christian "debate". How can there be respect if each thinks they are "the one true way"? There is a lot more likelihood of common ground with non-religious issues.

But, is there any real common ground between a democratic state, like the US, a communist state, like China, a dictator held state, like any number of African countries? Each one of those feel like they are right, but not any one of those governments is right. They all have problems, because you have a higher class of people and a lower class of people. There is no middle class, because those of us, myself included, who do not have the means to buy the world, are paying for those who can buy the world. No matter which type of government you live in, and isn't that the real reason why we have conflicts so the rich can get richer. It happened in Vietnam and it is happening now in Iraq.

Those who have power (or guns), are always looking for more power and money. Look at Germany before and during World War ll. Whomever is in power always wants more then he can have.

So, basically, what I am trying to say is religion is not the root cause of an uprising, or unrest, but the people who are supposed to be levelheaded and keep our countries out of these squirmishes. The actions of a country come from those who think they are doing what the people they represent want them to do. I, myself, didn't ask my leaders to invade Iraq, but to get bin Laden, and put him on trial for his actions of 9-11.

Hopefully my ramblings made some sort of sense.

BruceandNan,

I would suggest that ideas, or ideals, rather than greed or guns motivate conflict. The young men and women who have lately served as suicide bombers were persuaded to act, not bribed or coerced.

Conflicts between ideas, such as exist between liberal, secular democracies and autocratic theocracies, can be very difficult to manage – and then only after the other is understood. The West has only lately given substantial consideration to the Arab Middle East; for the prior four decades, their efforts were correctly focused on containing the Soviet Union.

It is not greed and guns nor ideas and ideals, but the plain and simple truth is Power creates power, the true leaders of the world, be they political or religious, want more power over others. Everything else is a way to a means.

I don't know if "True Leaders" want power. There are plenty of people who are leaders in spite of themselves - that is actually the premise of Moses...or even Jesus about not wanting to die on the cross. There are probably some parallels there to Islam. And as a result these people become leaders out of neccessity rather than desire. I would suspect that this is true across businesses and civil life. Perhaps MLK became a leader because "some one had to do it". Rosa Parks is another example. Anyway, you have the general idea.

That being said, I think that there are plenty of leaders who want power selfishly. And to by the same token it does not matter what venue they choose. The Church or Religion in highly religious areas, or Military or Civil in other areas. And in that respect, Power itself is the aphrodiasic. The bad part here is that these type of leaders also consider their role as for "the good of all", when it is for the good of a few.

I can only refer you to my second paragraph above.



Religion is not the root cause of all uprisings or unrest, but it would be naive to suggest that it has had no part (or been the cause) in many. Again, I can only say that removing religion is only removing one element of conflict, not sorting all of society's problems. Worthwhile, IMHO, but not a cure-all.

I would add that politics tends to be more pragmatic than religion. Compromises are made for financial, practical, necessary, and (above all) electoral reasons. Religion is a little more hardline :)

I would agree. I could, of course, suggest a likely source for these ideas :D

I'm not saying that religion isn't a cause, but is a thread, just like different types of governments and also those who lead, whether left or right wing or straight down the middle.

Back to the point at hand, will we ever know what started the jihad movement, probably not, because no one is alive who was actually around when the jihad started way back in the 1700-1800's. The only thing we know is that everything that has happened lately just adds fuel to the fire. As an example, the unrest in Northern Ireland. Every time the English brought down a safe house or someone in the hieracrchy (sp), the IRA would retaliate. The same applies to present day day Iraq and the whole Middle East.

We may never know how or why this jihad started. I know that the Barbery (sp) Wars were and still are a part of it.

mabelode,

True, but that accounts for only a fraction of idea driven conflict. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian, and Chinese Revolutions are more easily described as being driven by ideals than by religious zeal. It seems that much of the 20th century was spent examining the differences between Capitalism and Communism. Sometimes the contrasts involved violence, and sometimes not.

A friend of mine just sent me this URL and it a very interesting discussion/debate between an lady and an Islamic cleric. Turn the sound down (it's subtitled) as that can be distracting.

It is interesting.

http://switch5.castup.net/frames/20...1050wmv&ak=null

She had some very interesting points to make.

Unfortunately, the cleric did not have much opportunity to speak, and was clearly not the best person to put across the point of view of the Muslim people. I can't help thinking that a discussion with a female Muslim academic would have created a fairer playing field and may have made the debate a little less one sided.

The problem... is problematic
 

Bring from Sweden we usaly seem to have a rather laid back opinion on religon we dont have alot of fanatics like Pat in the US and alot of peopel i know look at these peopel whit a slight chuckel as if it was a joke, or shake their head woundering when the guy from candid camra will walk out.

This is a tendensy that is pretty simpel, we all 'know' cristianity even if we dont belive in jesus or god in waht ever shape or facion we all know the line "turn the other check" and we all see it as cristian benevolence and we have hard to understand how Islamic as a religon look so Hatefull towards us...

But the explenation is pretty simpel... one word, Interpretation... did i spell that right?

Any way, a person like Bin Laden reads the Coran like Pat Robertson read the Bibel he finds what he NEED and he use it...

You can justefy anything you want by reading the Bible Or the Koran it's taht simpel... now, that dont make either of them invalid only that one need to take in to acount that these where written LONG ago, by peopel wrighting a messige that reflected their time, when it's being read there are things that as a human of sound mind there are things that we have to look at and say... this dont go whit the the developed sence of morality and etics that we have today, and some things simply make no sence in modern day.

If you belive that the cristian messige is love and understanding, and peacefull coexsitance whit your fellow man, that messige can be found in the Bible...

If you belive in the bigot View of homofobes and rasists who belive in the purety of the blood and the right of a few over the masses and your right to assert your ideas in a way that end in murder and massaker, you can find that to...

The same have to be in the Koran, this is why Bin Laden can justefy what he is doing...

Sadly...

Cristianity have been just as bad as islam, we just tend to disregard it, i belive everyone know about Rowanda? but do you know that the massecers was orcesrated by peopel using the Cristian messige? these groups where backed by many of the cristian comuneties in Europe and USA (i'm not saying they backed the massaker but they game them founding for many years leading up to the massacer and where the peopel who when we started seeing how wrong things was going in that country that argued that everything was fine... as we know it today it was not...

Religon is not bad, peopels bad interpretations of a religon is...

I have friends who belive, both cristian and islamic... who's view and council and respec, and know peopel both cristian and islamic who's view have almost ended me in jail, a Muslim for coments on 911 and a Cristian on coments about a Lesbian freind of mine...

This all boil down to Hate... and Interpretations...

Bin Laden Hates USA, He hates the western world... as do many peopel in the Arab Countires... it ahve noting to do whit religon when you get it down to the basic...

And i will stop my preatching... and my horrid spelling

Admiral

Admiral, well said, and thank-you so much for your input.

I love to hear from other nationalities on the board here...it makes me cringe when people post on this site using 'we' to mean the one particular country they happen to come from.

It makes us seem so unfriendly to others, I always think.

I hope you continue to post often, as I often think this site needs a more truly international feel.

Yes indeed. The more people there are talking sensibly about a complex issue, the more likely it is that progress will be made towards resolving it.

So true. I think we are doing our bit, here. No-one has fallen out over this thread, but we have had a sensible discussion. It's a shame the rest of the world cannot always do the same.

It helps that we've seen each other naked. :D

Okay, so first we ban all clothing and then we uncover other differences, right?

First we ban all clothing.

Then I pleasure myself looking at all the sexy people.

Then...we uncover other differences. :D



Let's be honest...can you take anyone seriously when they have a boner?