Is it just a coincidence that the two most violent, historically speaking, religions of all time are at the crux of the worlds problems today, "so-called" Christianity and Islam?

Am I incorrect that Islam, regardless of the players and whether they are mainstream or not, belongs in this twosome? Certainly "so-called" Christianity does. I am not a historian of worlds religions and will welcome any accurate contradiction.

For the purpose of this discussion I must always refer to Christianity as "so-called", because the vast majority of "so-called" Christians I am thinking of are the least like Jesus himself, from what I have read about Jesus, anyway...


Well, I dont have any deep revelations about this, other than to say that the wars we are having and will have, likely, wont just be about money and oil and power, there will always be the religious component...

One thinks of John Lennon's "Imagine" about now, wondering how different things could be were there no religion at all.



(remember, like myself, you can have fully evolved and involved spiritual life and set of beliefs without religion entering into it for one moment)

I truely beleive people will find reason to war without religion. This is also true of non religious going after religious. People just dont have it in them to just get along.

a lot like politics. some dont think there can be any truth in the other side of an issue. Human nature I guess.

Don't forget Thugee. They only killed about 2M, but the per capita death rate per adherent must have been pretty high.

Don't stop at no religion,

imagine:

No possessions (I always found this one ironic from Lennon)
No greed
No hunger
No countries
Living (only) for today

It's always been a sideshow to war. Used to rationalize and justify it, but war has always been about other things. I'm sure the Crusaders were doing Christ's will when they went and sacked Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. No, they were after the city's riches.

You know about the Yanomamo, right? Extremely warlike people who live in the Amazon. For a long time, people thought Rousseau was right and that in "the state of nature" people would live placidly and in some kind of communal pacifist paradise.

Nope.

A third of Yanomamo men die from warfare before reaching old age. So devoted is their society to killing and war that those who kill more in battle have more wives and children. They were rewarded with higher status. (Here, we just take our military generals and make them president.) They constantly raid and attack each other's villages and even steal their women.

I'm sure they invoke whatever gods they have before each raid, and curse the gods of the neighboring village before they raid it; but it's still just a sideshow.

Hmmm. Depends on how you define "most violent."

Are the religions of carnivores and omnivores more violent than those of vegetarians (orthodox Hindus and Jains come to mind)?

How about religions whose practice require ritual sacrifice? And even cannibalism?

never looked at it from that angle. thanks.

I think that sun worshipers have the longest history of violence. Current major religions are the desedents of sun worship.
Aside from that, the worship/love of money is a hell of a bloody cult. Greed is not good.

Two Spanish men have been arrested in The Gambia accused of making homosexual advances to taxi drivers, police say.

Last month, President Yahya Jammeh's threatened to behead gay people at a political rally and said they had 24 hours to leave the country.

He promised "stricter laws than Iran" on homosexuality and said he would "cut off the head" of any gay person.

Mr Jammeh's statements have been condemned by gay rights activists but the AP news agency says it was backed by the country's Supreme Islamic Council, which said the president had taken a "principled stand".

read it all -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7433018.stm