Show that there is *religiously* motivated violence

[Bells]

Not at all.

Oh. I always thought you were.

for your edification

I know the litany. Hence why I asked you the question.

but a pale glimmer of violence compared to the marvel of contemporary industrial models.

IOW if all meat eaters adopted Sanetria practices to meet their violent needs animals, as a whole would have a less violent existence

And if this thread was about the consumption of meat that is available commercially, this comment of yours would not be out of place. But it is not.

You still haven't answered the question.

Given that its difficult to find an example of such that doesn't warrant extensive critiques from the very traditions that they appear in, its difficult to approach it as anything but deviant or extreme fringe behaviour
IOW if a vast majority of practitioners of the said tradition, what to speak of being motivated to perform it, are extremely critical of it, it certainly doesn't appear like a strong example for religiously motivated violence.

So you don't think whipping yourself or hitting yourself with a knife or with your hands (as Shiite Muslims do during Ashura around the world), as a religious practice, can be called 'religiously motivated violence'? I wouldn't exactly call it "fringe" or deviant behaviour, considering the millions of Shiites around the world who commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali in this manner.

What about Opus Dei, many of whom practice the mortification of the flesh? Or the Catholics in the Phillipines who re-enact the crucifixion every year by literally crucifying people on the cross? Not religiously motivated violence?

And what do you think of Orthodox Jews who ritualistically kill chickens on the eve of Yom Kippur? You don't think that is violent and driven by their religious beliefs?

 

[wynn]

And you do not find religious texts that dictate the use of violence to be sufficient to demonstrate capacity?

Somewhre in the Bible it is stated that one ought to wash one's hands before eating.
Does that make the instruction to wash one's hands specifically religious or Christian? No.

Everything written in the Bible is not "religious."

I don't envy you the task of trying to demonstrate that religion is incapable of motivating to violence, but thus far you haven't done so.

I have already noted that it is only greed, anger and delusion that have the capacity to motivate violence.

 

[wynn]

I believe I have located part of the problem.

You're assuming that the existence of deities is a necessary component for the existence of religious violence: that the deity must exist and pass on instructions. It isn't. It is entirely as possible to commit religious violence for a non-existent deity as it is for a real one. This is sort of a false dilemma fallacy.

If you're an atheist ...

 

[wynn]

And if we use your reasoning, then no one can ever be motivated by anything to commit an act of violence.

I already noted that greed, anger and delusion are the ones that have the capacity to motivate violence.

You fail to notice that while someone can be motivated by their religious beliefs or even by their beliefs that "the little grey men" told them to do it, it is not an excuse.

It is only you who is talking about excusing anything.

A man blowing up a family planning clinic and killing doctors, nurses and patients and saying that his religious beliefs motivated him to act in such a fashion will not be given a lesser sentence because of that belief or motivation.

But it does not make his motivation any less religious.

Re bolded part: Show it.

You don't think that pastor and the others were religiously motivated to beat that child to death while they tried to perform an exorcism on her?

No.

How about the brother and sister in Bolivia who drowned their sister in the bathtub during an exorcism? You don't think that was religiously motivated violence?

No.

Anything can motivate someone to violence.

So if a reader of this forum killed a hundred people and claimed that it was Bells from Sciforums who motivated him to do it - would you just believe it?

The US and my own country believe that they are helping Iraq become democratic.

I am sure that many Iraqis and others disagree that what the US did there helped them to become democratic.

If a person shoots another in the name of Jesus, then yes, I would say that individual felt motivated by his religious beliefs to act as he did. It does not excuse his behaviour or actions. But it does not mean that he was not motivated by his personal beliefs.

And what exactly was religious about those personal beliefs of his? That he mentioned Jesus?

 

[wynn]

/.../
And what do you think of Orthodox Jews who ritualistically kill chickens on the eve of Yom Kippur? You don't think that is violent and driven by their religious beliefs?

You seem to assume that such acts of physical force are committed in ill will, with the explicit desire to hurt others, to cause them physical pain and psychological suffering, with the intention to prove one's superiority and to appease one's own egotism.

Yes?

 

[Sarkus]

Somewhre in the Bible it is stated that one ought to wash one's hands before eating.
Does that make the instruction to wash one's hands specifically religious or Christian? No.

Actually, it does, if it motivates one to do just that specifically because it is in the Bible, rather than purely for considerations of health.
Certainly in the Catholic mass there is a part where the priest washes his hands. This is certainly motivated by the Bible.

Everything written in the Bible is not "religious."

Do you mean "not everything written... is..." or do you genuinely mean "everything written... is not..."??

I have already noted that it is only greed, anger and delusion that have the capacity to motivate violence.

And I have already called bollox on that.
Those are certainly core / key emotions that motivate (although as I indicated earlier, you missed the more obvious one of fear), but anything that suggests means of alleviating these emotions clearly motivates that particular action over another.

If a book provokes fear by detailing all the nasty things that can lurk in the dark at night, and then says that you can alleviate the fear by sleeping in the bathroom, would you say that the act of sleeping in the bathroom is motivated solely by fear, or by fear coupled with the explanations in the book.

I.e. the core emotion can motivate one to act, but it can not, alone, motivate one specific act over another, unless you go down to the level of instinct.
Similarly, religion is not the key emotion, but it can motivate one to act in a certain way rather than another.

 

[GeoffP]

If you're an atheist ...

No. If you're an atheist or theist. Religiously-motivated violence comes from religious texts. A deity is not required for it. If you think those texts are not religious, you will have to demonstrate same.

 

[lightgigantic]

I know the litany. Hence why I asked you the question.

transubstantiation seems to do away with the question of violence ... unless you think that Catholics are re-enacting the glory of killing Christ or something

And if this thread was about the consumption of meat that is available commercially, this comment of yours would not be out of place. But it is not.

You still haven't answered the question.

So you don't think whipping yourself or hitting yourself with a knife or with your hands (as Shiite Muslims do during Ashura around the world), as a religious practice, can be called 'religiously motivated violence'?

no more than I think that a parent who molests their offspring can be said to be motivated to act as such because they are parents.

I wouldn't exactly call it "fringe" or deviant behaviour, considering the millions of Shiites around the world who commemorate the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali in this manner.

I wouldn't call those displays particularly violent .. or at least the violence is on par with this

What about Opus Dei, many of whom practice the mortification of the flesh?

Renunciation can be just as violent as self infulgence

Or the Catholics in the Phillipines who re-enact the crucifixion every year by literally crucifying people on the cross? Not religiously motivated violence?

I think that is certainly fringe activity .... much like taking parents who molest their children as representative of parenthood

And what do you think of Orthodox Jews who ritualistically kill chickens on the eve of Yom Kippur?

Do you think its a coincidence that chicken is also on the menu?

You don't think that is violent and driven by their religious beliefs?

I think you are talking about propensities that people (unfortunately) go about and fulfill as part of everyday life. I am pretty sure that you don't bat an eyelid at someone who eats meat twice day yet somehow someone who does the same thing on a particular calender event is suddenly representative of violence?

 

[lightgigantic]

The slaughter of the animal in kosher and halal systems is necessarily more violent than in regulated commercial production, I'm afraid. If the slaughterhouses were designed towards halal or kosher production specifically, they would be more violent still.

actually if you look at it in detail there are numerous restrictions in time, place and circumstance to effectively regulate the slaughter of animals (as opposed to the 24/7 option of the industrial model) eg - waiting 6 hours between the consumption of meat and dairy products
IOW regulated commercial production affords only one consideration - unmitigated demand - which necessarily translates into more carcasses.

But all this said, I think its splitting hairs since any meat eating is necessarily violent.

Its a weird discussion - kind of like a a bunch of atheist cannibals claiming that another party of theistic cannibals is violent because they don't stun their victims before they eat them (never mind that the whole business of stunning their victims arose out of mass production facilities)

 

[GeoffP]

transubstantiation seems to do away with the question of violence ... unless you think that Catholics are re-enacting the glory of killing Christ or something

Well, I suppose I agree here: transubstantiation doesn't really seem all that violent, really. (I don't think the intent was ever that it was actual pieces of Jesus. If it ever physically transubstantiated, I think there would be a considerable amount of surprise.)

actually if you look at it in detail there are numerous restrictions in time, place and circumstance to effectively regulate the slaughter of animals (as opposed to the 24/7 option of the industrial model) eg - waiting 6 hours between the consumption of meat and dairy products
IOW regulated commercial production affords only one consideration - unmitigated demand - which necessarily translates into more carcasses.

But which are rendered humanely and with minimum stress to the animal. The same cannot be said of religious slaughter. It is really quite beside the point that there are limits in time between the consumption of animal products. It's the stress and pain imposed on the animal that is of relevance.

 

[Arioch]

Why is this thread even still open? Wynn opened the thread postulating that there was no religiously motivated violence and then, without even going so far as to support his position, demanded that we prove him wrong. By those standards this was done on the first page of the thread and many pages thereafter as many of us posted links to instances of religiously motivated violence. All we needed to do was show even one instance of religiously motivated violence to prove Wynn and the other trolls wrong, and we've shown beyond any reasonable doubt that religion can and does motivate violent behavior.

The only reason this thread is still active is because some, primarily Wynn and LG, are adamantly refusing to budge an inch in their determination to completely redefine several words until they bear absolutely no resemblance to their former definitions, and they seek to do this despite the fact that their definition would leave out the overwhelming majority of the world's population(and I'm pretty sure that for a large portion of the population, suddenly being described as "nonreligious" is something that could spark even more violence).

So the only question that really remains after all of these pages is how long the rest of us are going to feed the trolls.

 

[GeoffP]

Seconded.

Please shut this thread.

 

[Gustav]

cant help yourselves eh arioch? geoff?

so they are misguided
what is your excuse?

All we needed to do was show even one instance of religiously motivated violence to prove Wynn and the other trolls wrong,

wtf is that?
a exception to the rule, an aberration, proves exactly what? a minute fraction of all violence can be attributed to religion?

and this is your victory?

/scoffs

 

[Arioch]

@Gustov --

If Wynn's statement was that religion rarely motivates violence you would be absolutely right in scoffing, however that's not the case here at all. Wynn didn't state(merely by fiat I might add) that religion rarely motivates violence, he stated that religion doesn't cause violence and then challenged us to prove him wrong. We did.

In these circumstances yes, just one example is enough to prove Wynn wrong. We did just that in the first page of this idiotically long thread. Wynn has, since then, not even bothered to amend his statement, instead we merely get worthless posts talking about "what counts as religion" and whether or not specific motivators could be considered "religious" by Wynn and LG's asinine definitions. Meanwhile post after post after post pile up linking to acts of religious violence, calls to violence for religious reasons(such as the bounty on Salman Rushdie's head, to pull one random example out of my ass), and even quotes from the bible and the koran(the two most popular religious texts on the face of the planet) where god itself calls to it's followers to do violence(especially to unbelievers), and neither LG nor Wynn are able to counter these. They can argue all they want but the fact of the matter is that reality disagrees with Wynn's OP and therefore Wynn is wrong, end of story.

There's absolutely no reason to keep this thread open other than to feed the trolls at this point.

 

[Gustav]

In these circumstances yes, just one example is enough to prove Wynn wrong.

again no
you have to show a pattern of violence. a single instance can be explained away as an aberration

but you should know this
winning on technicalities is hardly squashing their argument
this aint no white/black swan shit

 

[GeoffP]

Billy goats gruff

cant help yourselves eh arioch? geoff?

Yes, we certainly invited pointless trolling there. I salute your detection.

wtf is that?
a exception to the rule, an aberration, proves exactly what? a minute fraction of all violence can be attributed to religion?

and this is your victory?

/scoffs

'Minute' fraction like the sanguine, saturated history of - literally, here - thousands of years of religious conflict and violence

You'll forgive me if I'm a little skeptical that this position has ever been taken by you, anytime, anywhere else. I mean, it would still be worthy of ridicule, but it just strikes me as particularly opportunistic here.

/laughs

 

[GeoffP]

Ffs

again no
you have to show a pattern of violence. a single instance can be explained away as an aberration

"Single instance".

For fuck's sake.

 

[Bells]

I already noted that greed, anger and delusion are the ones that have the capacity to motivate violence.

So it is only limited to that is it?

What promotes anger and delusion? Look at Eric Robert Rudolph. What promoted his anger against abortion, which he felt was murder and against God's teachings? So much so that he was responsible for a string of bombings over several years?

He admitted himself that his violence and was motivated by his religious beliefs. His religious beliefs fueled his hatred of the political system which he believed sanctioned abortion. And yet here you are saying he is wrong, because you don't think he was motivated by his religious beliefs.

In short, you are sticking your fingers in your ears and saying 'la la la I can't hear you' because you don't want to believe that he could have been motivated to act as he did by his religious beliefs. You are applying religious motivation to the whole and not to the individual. And that is where you are wrong. Look at the Lambs of Christ as a prime example. The Christian anti-abortion group claims to be non-violent. But several of its members and those associated with it have gone on to kill and bomb abortion clinics because of their religious beliefs and interpretation of their religious beliefs. Does that mean all Catholics are abortion clinic bombers and go out of their way to murder doctors? No. What it means is that there are some Catholics who are militant and who do interpret the text and their own religious teachings to believe that they must use violence to stop something that goes against their religious beliefs. And they do. The anger and hatred they feel for anything regarding abortion stems from their religious beliefs and so they acted on it. That is religious motivation.

It is only you who is talking about excusing anything.

And it is you who is attempting to deny that some individuals on this planet do find motivation to kill from their interpretation of their religious beliefs. It does not mean that the religion itself is violent. It just means that some do interpret the text to mean that they can be violent.

Re bolded part: Show it.

So Rudolph saying that he was motivated by his religious beliefs to act as he did means that he was not motivated by his religious beliefs according to you?

In other written statements, Rudolph has cited biblical passages and offered religious motives for his militant opposition to abortion.​

And if you read the OT, the sheer amount of violence and statements where violence is acceptable, sometimes even against one's own children, yes, there are some people out there who will take that seriously and act on it. There are some who interpret their religious text to mean that it is acceptable and their duty to be violent and to kill.

No.

Wait..

You do not think that a pastor killing someone during an exorcism is religiously motivated violence?

Wow.. Troll much Wynn?

So if a reader of this forum killed a hundred people and claimed that it was Bells from Sciforums who motivated him to do it - would you just believe it?

If that is what motivated them? Then yes.

It does not mean that I am violent or that I deliberately went out of my way to motivate someone to do something like that. But if someone reads what I write on here and gets so angry at how they interpreted it and went out and killed someone and then blamed their anger on me? Yes, it would mean that I did motivate someone to kill, even if I had nothing to actually do with it.

It does not mean I am to blame. But it does mean that someone took what I said so seriously and interpreted it to mean what they wanted it to mean and yes, it motivated them to violence.

Which is what I have been trying to make you understand. Religion as the whole is not to blame for people being motivated by it when they commit acts of violenct. It is the individual's interpretation of their religious beliefs that is to blame for whatever violent acts they commit as a result.

I am sure that many Iraqis and others disagree that what the US did there helped them to become democratic.

Does not make Bush's motivation any less real to Bush.

And what exactly was religious about those personal beliefs of his? That he mentioned Jesus?

That he felt he was sanctioned by his personal beliefs in Jesus to do it in the first place.

You seem to assume that such acts of physical force are committed in ill will, with the explicit desire to hurt others, to cause them physical pain and psychological suffering, with the intention to prove one's superiority and to appease one's own egotism.

Yes?

I'm sorry, but swinging a chicken over one's head numerous times and then slaughtering it is meant to be fun for the chicken?

The chicken's feelings do not enter into the equation. Or did you miss that part?

______________________________________________________________

transubstantiation seems to do away with the question of violence ... unless you think that Catholics are re-enacting the glory of killing Christ or something

Catholics re-enact the glory of killing Christ every easter. The Catholics in the Phillipines have it down to an artform.

And I know of some Catholics who believe they are eating and drinking the body of Christ, instead of a piece of wafer and watered down wine. And they believe it to the very core and fibre of their being and to them, it is a re-enactment and they fall to their knees praising God for it, every single day. They also have scars on their backs from where they whip themselves and on their knees from where they walked on their knees for dozens of metres on hot and rough stone in worship to their God and Christ. So you don't think their actions are religiously motivated?

no more than I think that a parent who molests their offspring can be said to be motivated to act as such because they are parents.

Why could you not say that?

I know of parents who molested their children because the children were theres and they felt they could do whatever the hell they wanted with them.

I understand why you are taking such leaps and trying to veer this off topic with such examples, but there are parents who are motivated to molest their children because they are the parents of those children. Hell, one even locked his daughter up in a cellar for numerous years and fathered her children and thought it was acceptable.

So Shiite Muslims whipping themselves and smacking and cutting their heads with knives is not religiously motivated violence to you?

How about Catholics who also whip themselves daily and cause intentional pain to themselves on a daily basis based solely on their religious beliefs? You don't think that is religiously motivated violence?

I wouldn't call those displays particularly violent .. or at least the violence is on par with this

So men who whip and cut themselves once a year is not violent?

Okay then. Hate to imagine what you consider violent then.

I think that is certainly fringe activity .... much like taking parents who molest their children as representative of parenthood

Nice troll.

Now I am going to warn you to stop trolling.

You apply it to the whole instead of looking at the motivation of the individual.

Do you think its a coincidence that chicken is also on the menu?

Should that matter?

The acts before the chicken is cooked is violent though and it is solely motivated by their individual religious beliefs.

I think you are talking about propensities that people (unfortunately) go about and fulfill as part of everyday life. I am pretty sure that you don't bat an eyelid at someone who eats meat twice day yet somehow someone who does the same thing on a particular calender event is suddenly representative of violence?

Not at all.

It does not make that particular religious calender event less violent to certain Jews, does it?

 

[Gustav]

Now I am going to warn you to stop trolling.


unofficially of course

 

[Big Chiller]

but you should know this
winning on technicalities is hardly squashing their argument
this aint no white/black swan shit

Technicalities do matter but those here making claims of religious violence do not seem to understand what their claim is I wonder if there can even be technically such a thing as *religious violence* but maybe there can be metaphorical *religious violence*. :m: