Quote:
Originally posted by DsBlu01CivEX
You can't say that religion is the "cause" of most of the major catastrophes in the world. That's not fair to say. Geography and governments I would argue are the major causes of wars and what not. Religion just gets factored into that and works as an excellent scapegoat. Like Isreal today....the only reason why they're fighting is because of governments dividing up land and being greedy. Nations were founded on greed...to see who could get the most land (ie Roman Empire!!!) and what not. The only country that I can think of that hasn't had tons of turmoil and actually lives somewhat in "peace" and has multiple ethnicities/languages/religions is Switzerland. When boundary lines are drawn and people are grouped together under one government, but don't have similare beliefs/languages/etc....you're bound to have turmoil and what not.
So, it's definitely not religion that has been the major factor in everything.....it's just the scapegoat, because that's easy and pushes everybody's buttons.
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Actually...for the most part he's right. Even those catastrophes and atrocities that are commited for "political" reasons, religion and politics are rarely ever far removed from each other. Take Israel for example...as countries go it's an infant. It was established in 1947 after WWII as a sort of apology to the jews and give them the homeland they'd always though of as theirs. Problem is that the Palestinians lived there too and didn't take kindly to having no say in the taking of what they consider to be THEIR homeland. So yes, a coalition of governments created a potential problem...but religion caused the violence and fuels it to this day. Same with most of the Middle East. After WWI and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire they ("they" being white western European folks) had to do something with all of that land, so they just drew lines on a map. They didn't think that these people hate these people and now they live in the same country. But drawing lines on a map is a formality...it's still religion that causes them to fight. The making of countries would be meaningless if everyone got along. As for scapegoats...politics makes just as good a scapegoat as religion so I fail to see any difference. Call it what you want, but you'll never be able to please anyone, but without religion as a catalyst you'd have MUCH fewer issues than we presently see today. Look at the IRA...a "war" of sorts based almost ENTIRELY on catholic vs. protestant. It also takes a special kind of zealousnoess to cause these problems that generally aren't found in America. For example, most blacks are by and large christian or muslim...but for some reason a good amount of them distrust jews (well...white people altogether, but for some reason jews in particular). Does this bring us to war? No. I won't claim to be able to explain it all, but don't fool yourself into thinking government and religion are too far removed from each other. Look at Bush's "faith based initiatives"
. Constitution? What constitution?