On War & Religion

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Inspired by a class I am taking on Ethics and Terrorism. A student mentioned that religious extremists could easily find their justification for war with their God based on St. Augustine’s identification of Just War. I just don’t get it, and above is my explanation why.

Got it!!

Got it too . But there is a much more sinister motivation behind religious extremism. The people who control the religious extremists don't care about religion at all. They aren't even religious.

I don't disagree, I just wish they would be honest about it. I don't know, maybe I'm just sentimental like that?

when has a tyrant ever been honest about their motives...lol

Humankind, just like a good number of other social animals, are by their nature tribalist. We love our own for no reason other than that they are our own and we despise the other for nothing but being the other also. If they speak another language, eat another fruit, wear another cloth, greet by another hand or are born with another shade of skin, we hate them, generally speaking. While those that fit this description have no excuse for it, it nonetheless takes a level of compassion and intellect to see yourself in the other's eyes and to welcome them beside your own and historically that sort of kindness turned out rather rare.
Religion is not a cause for most of it, and it is not the only cause for much of the rest of it, but it does stack another layer of division between people for no reason whatsoever. It breeds and begets hatred for other cultures regardless of how closely and seriously its supernatural claims are held. Whether we assume that the terrorist or tyrant leader actually believe the religion they employ to manipulate their subordinates, said subordinates can be certainly said to follow their leaders out of a sincere agreement with what they say, and there is nothing preaching religious intolerance louder than religions themselves. To create additional motives for hatred and violence is what they do, some more than others, some even designed with this in mind; to fall victim to the manipulations religions are made for the sake of is not a fundamental misunderstanding of the religion.

Whyte Horse wrote: Got it too . But there is a much more sinister motivation behind religious extremism. The people who control the religious extremists don't care about religion at all. They aren't even religious.

This basically sums up my feelings on the matter too. The world is full of people who interpret and twist religion and other ideals for their own gender.

Actually, here's another point:

Let's say I choose my schedules to keep one day of the week off, because my book tells me so, and let's say I don't eat pork, because my book tells me so. If you don't want the reference to sound as if it was a particular religion, let's mix it up a little and say I am not allowed to eat ham instead. Let's say I never enter a temple without a head dress, because my book tells me so, I'm circumcised because my book told my parents so, I observe a weekly ceremony because my book tells me so and I profess the holy Truth of my book to my peers because the book tells me so.

Now, if that's what I said, nobody would question my motives. Nobody would say that it is a matter of local climate or recent geopolitical history. But if I say that my book also tells me that I must not leave those wretched witches in peace, or that I must not ever befriend a non-believer, and that I am obliged to wage a holy war on them (specifically them and not just their non-belief) even in times when I or my peers doubt that I should, and I do, all of a sudden my faith has nothing to do with it and I completely misunderstand the text and I'm not true to my deity and the motivations for my action are completely absolved from the religion that motivates every other ritualistic nonsense I make myself follow every day.
Why is that?

Worth watching...

Gisteron wrote: But if I say that my book also tells me that I must not leave those wretched witches in peace, or that I must not ever befriend a non-believer, and that I am obliged to wage a holy war on them (specifically them and not just their non-belief) even in times when I or my peers doubt that I should, and I do, all of a sudden my faith has nothing to do with it and I completely misunderstand the text and I'm not true to my deity and the motivations for my action are completely absolved from the religion that motivates every other ritualistic nonsense I make myself follow every day.
Why is that?

If you're losing while you claim your deity's name, you don't have the favor of your deity. Perhaps it simply means you are an unbeliever at the core of your heart, and therefore your deity refuses to work with you even though you are doing as his/her book tells you.

Much like this (since I know this is specifically Abrahamic you're referencing, I'll go with Abrahamic tradition)

Abel and Cain each give their offerings to God. Both have done so, but Cain's offering is not received well. Both believed in God, both followed pretty much what He told them, but one did not have the sincerity of the other.