Show that there is *religiously* motivated violence

[Bells]

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

I would say that categorically saying that no one can be motivated by their religious beliefs to commit acts of violence is making a "white/black" statement. There are some people who are motivated by their personal religious beliefs and interpretation of their religious text to commit acts of violence. Family planning centre bombers, those who murder doctors who perform abortions for example, are motivated by their religious beliefs. And those attacks were not isolated either. There have been numerous bombings of that type in the last 30 years.

Like the mob who attacked and murdered Dr. Graham Staines and his two young son's as they slept in their car. I would say that murder was religiously motivated. And it was not an isolated attack. Christians had been reporting of repeated attacks in the region. It does not mean that all Hindus are violent and see fit to burn people alive in cars. Just those who commit such crimes.

It can never be black and white. And that is something those who are convinced that no one can be motivated by their religious beliefs to commit acts of violence do not realise. Some individuals are motivated by their religious beliefs, just as there are some who are motivated by the voices they hear in their heads. It does not make that motivation less real to the individual.

 

[wynn]

It does not make that motivation less real to the individual.

And if something is real to an individual,
that makes it real for everyone else?

 

[Bells]

And if something is real to an individual,
that makes it real for everyone else?

Lets just say someone holds a loaded gun to your head and tells you that his religious beliefs have led him to this course of action. Is it real for you or not?

 

[Socratic Spelunker]

Seconded.

Please shut this thread.

This.

 

[wynn]

Lets just say someone holds a loaded gun to your head and tells you that his religious beliefs have led him to this course of action. Is it real for you or not?

The gun to my head - yes.

Do I believe his religious beliefs have led him to point it to my head? No.

 

[wynn]

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.

If it is done to please God, then it could be religious.

Certainly in the Catholic mass there is a part where the priest washes his hands. This is certainly motivated by the Bible.

So now you believe that books can motivate?

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

I meant "not everything written... is...," obviously.

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.

No. Fear is simply a concern. The way fear works out depends on numerous other factors, but fear alone is not problematic.

It is when fear is coupled with greed, anger and delusion that people do nasty things.
When fear is coupled with skill and wisdom, people do good or at least tolerable things.

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.

When we talk about motivation, we need to go to the basic factors, the ones that actually function as motivators.

It is a common-sense truism that greed, anger and delusion motivate violence, in one form or another.


Look at numerous and various cases of violence: What do they all have in common?
Greed, anger and delusion.
So greed, anger and delusion are the motivators for violence.
All else (ie. whether the perpetrator is a theist, an atheist, young, old, male, female, poor, rich, ...) is inconsequential to violence, it is circumstantial at most.

Similarly, religion is not the key emotion, but it can motivate one to act in a certain way rather than another.

Religion is an emotion?

 

[wynn]

What promotes anger and delusion?

Greed, anger and delusion are the standard companions of people in conditioned existence.

Religious beliefs pertain to the true nature of living beings, and the true nature of living beings is not conditioned, and as such, beyond greed, anger and delusion.

Look at Eric Robert Rudolph. What promoted his anger against abortion, which he felt was murder and against God's teachings?

I'd say it seems that his anger, already in existence due to him being a person in conditioned existence, was accompanied by the greed and delusion that he needs to play God to other people.

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.

No. That is your understanding of religious motivation.

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.

No.

If people find motivation to kill from their interpretation of their religious beliefs, then this is not religiously motivated violence. It is violence related to a particular interpretation of a religious belief.

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.

An interpretation of a religious text is not automatically religious.

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?

What was religious about those beliefs? That he claimed they were religious?

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.

You are failing to distinguish between the use of force, and violence.

The two are very different things.

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

Prove that it has something to do with religion.

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.

If you admitted this in a court of law, you'd be considered an accomplice, and yes, you would be blamed.

"I motivated someone to kill" is an admission of criminal intent is, and an admission of criminal intent is proof of criminal intent.

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.

The whole point of discussing violence is to find the culprit, enact justice, and do everything we can to prevent violence from happening in the future.

The outlook that you expressed earlier, namely that "Anything can motivate anyone to anything," does not help us toward that goal.

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?

Do you eat chicken?

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

Aggressive chemo- and radiation therapy are not violent?

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

Acting on greed, anger and delusion.

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

You can read people's minds?

 

[wynn]

Technicalities do matter but those here making claims of religious violence do not seem to understand what their claim is

Exactly.

Hence this thread.

I wonder if there can even be technically such a thing as *religious violence*

Religious violence would exist if the true, eternal nature of all living beings would be greed, anger and delusion - if the best that living beings could ever be, would be nothing but the workings of greed, anger and delusion.

I do believe that there is more, significantly more to living beings, and to life in this Universe, than that.

 

[wynn]

No. If you're an atheist or theist. Religiously-motivated violence comes from religious texts.

Then you actually believe religious texts have supernatural powers!

 

[Sarkus]

No. Fear is simply a concern. The way fear works out depends on numerous other factors, but fear alone is not problematic.

I find this rather naive. When people feel they are in genuine danger it is rather impressive what violence they can do in the name of self-preservation.
But then you would think it greedy to want to stay alive, no doubt?

The rest of your comments I find to be rather silly, given that you start with the idea that fear is not able to motivate, and that you define "motivation" as exclusively an emotion.

And I thought you were beyond "I define X to be that which enables me to win the argument by definition".
:shrug:

Can you provide any source that supports your definition?

 

[lightgigantic]

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.

Not really since religious injunctions apply to consumption and production which have a net result of less instances and opportunities for cruelty.

For instance there are certain animals that are not slaughtered, there are prohibitions on diseased animals (whereas commercial abattoirs are like a rush to get them to the supermarket shelves before they literally drop dead) and there are not loopholes such as the common practice of bashing young diseased piglets on the floor since they are not for the butchers shelves and hence don't warrant a stun to the head)

In short a meat eater has a necessary requirement for violence and religion simply curtails the practice by limiting the frequency

 

[lightgigantic]

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.

Arioch you gave up offering input into this thread a long time ago.

All you can do is come back every week and troll rather than address key flaws in your argument.

Rather than the thread closing you should simply go away
:shrug:

 

[GeoffP]

Then you actually believe religious texts have supernatural powers!

Wait: are you saying you don't believe in the existence of motivation? My word. Well, how is this newfound perspective going to fit into your title? ("Show that there is *religiously* motivated violence"; my emphasis) How can there be religiously motivated violence if there is no such thing as motivation? And if not, are humans automatons, responding to any suggestion without discretion or discrimination, or completely immovable objects responding to no suggestion or motivation? Is it a mental free for all or a mental mountain? Your thoughts?

Not really since religious injunctions apply to consumption and production which have a net result of less instances and opportunities for cruelty.

Not true, since the act of religious slaughter is inherently cruel and violent. Cruelty does occur outside religious slaughter; however, this is invariably due to an oversight of law or the breaking of the law rather than the explicit requirement for such slaughtering methods.

In short a meat eater has a necessary requirement for violence and religion simply curtails the practice by limiting the frequency

This injunction above would also not apply in a country where the majority of its members consume religiously slaughtered food. I suspect Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some sectors of Israel would fall into this category.

 

[lightgigantic]

Catholics re-enact the glory of killing Christ every easter.

with what?
bread and watered down wine?

And they partake of it in the manner of inflicting injuries on Jesus?

The Catholics in the Phillipines have it down to an artform.

I know quite a few catholics from the Philippines and I can sure you its fringe activity ... but that said feel free to rely on hyperbolic journalism

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?

more misguided (to say the least you don't see the pope doing such things or even orchestrating them so obviously it must be relegated to fringe activity) ... much like its more accurate to describe parents who molest their children as misguided as opposed to be motivated to molest them on account of parenthood

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.

i think its obvious that "parenthood" is not the contributing factor, but rather a host of other things contributing to the individual

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

Not really if it draws criticism from the same religious core and finds its expression in fringe groups.

IOW its a misdirection of religion much like molesting children is a misdirection of parenthood

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?

Once again if its not enacted or orchestrated by leaders (or even the main body of) of Catholicism it tends to indicate its fringe activity arising from individuals.

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

Did you look at the video?

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

If you think the video you posted is violent you must have a hyper-liberal interpretation of the word .... it must even make an audience giving applause appear violent since they are pounding their hands together
:shrug:

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.

Why don't you try applying it to the whole for the change?

What to speak of it being endorsed, there is a majority criticism from the very group you (beginning circa 14th century for the catholics) are trying to deem as motivating violence.

Should that matter?

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

so where do regular chicken eaters get their raw ingredients from?
trees?

(No prizes for guessing how a vegetarian jew celebrates the day btw ...)

Not at all.

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

It makes them more or less just as violent as their atheist counterpart fulfilling the same base needs.
(for instance you can get sloppy industrial slaughter houses that drag still conscious pigs into chambers that blast their skin off with hot water or sloppy kosher factories where the animal trips over its own trachea)

IOW meat eating has a necessary requirement for violence

The only "less violent" aspect of it is that the scale of the act is lower since there are prescriptions that effectively limit its frequency to a group of society that will go about eating meat regardless

 

[lightgigantic]

Not true, since the act of religious slaughter is inherently cruel and violent.
Cruelty does occur outside religious slaughter; however, this is invariably due to an oversight of law or the breaking of the law rather than the explicit requirement for such slaughtering methods.

slaughter - period - is cruel and violent ... its an unavoidable consequence of meat eating much like pregnancy is to progeny

I am simply saying that the purely commercial model of it comes off worst since it translates as a worse environment for the victim in terms of living conditions and frequency

This injunction above would also not apply in a country where the majority of its members consume religiously slaughtered food. I suspect Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and some sectors of Israel would fall into this category.

So the non-religious minority is the consumerist driving force behind their economy?
How does that work?

But actually it is broader than that since kosher regulates a stricter avoidance of disease for the victim (whereas factory farming involves post-mortem cosmetic surgery for cyst removal and the like)

 

[Bells]

Greed, anger and delusion are the standard companions of people in conditioned existence.

Religious beliefs pertain to the true nature of living beings, and the true nature of living beings is not conditioned, and as such, beyond greed, anger and delusion.

So says you.

But not every religious individual thinks or believes that way. Hell look at the Pope who has spent quite a bit of time covering up child abuse cases and moving priests around to further cover it up to protect the Church.

While you state the ideal, or what one would expect, that is not always the case and some individuals go a few steps further in their religious beliefs.

I'd say it seems that his anger, already in existence due to him being a person in conditioned existence, was accompanied by the greed and delusion that he needs to play God to other people.

What greed?

The man was a religious nut bag who murdered people and bombed abortion clinics because of his religious beliefs. He even admited he was motivated to act as he did because of his religious beliefs. So why is that a problem for you? Why do you deny what he admitted himself?

What stake do you have in this discussion?

No. That is your understanding of religious motivation.

You mean like it is your understanding that all religious indviduals are above and beyond greed and anger?

Right...

Because obviously, reality is a foreign concept for you.

No.

If people find motivation to kill from their interpretation of their religious beliefs, then this is not religiously motivated violence. It is violence related to a particular interpretation of a religious belief.

So a person comes out and says that they were motivated to commit an act of violence because of their religious beliefs and you say no, that it does not exist.

Wow..

If someone finds motivation to kill or commit violence from their interpretation of their religious beliefs, then it is religiously motivated violence.. Your last sentence amounts to violence motivated by religious belief.

An interpretation of a religious text is not automatically religious.

Oh dear god..

What was religious about those beliefs? That he claimed they were religious?

Can you seriously troll more?

He claimed that he was motivated to act as he did because of his religious beliefs. In other words, it was his religious beliefs that motivated him to commit those terrorist acts.

And you don't think that is religiously motivated violence?

You are failing to distinguish between the use of force, and violence.

The two are very different things.

So the OT telling people when it is acceptable to kill one's children, you don't view that as violence?

Okay then..

Prove that it has something to do with religion.

You want me to prove, that a priest/pastor performing an exorcism on a parishioner, who they believed was possessed by evil spirits/demons had something to do with religion?

Really? This is how far you want to go with this?

If you admitted this in a court of law, you'd be considered an accomplice, and yes, you would be blamed.

"I motivated someone to kill" is an admission of criminal intent is, and an admission of criminal intent is proof of criminal intent.

No. If someone read what I wrote in here and used that as motivation, without my knowledge, then no, I would not be considered an accomplice.

Can you see the difference?

The whole point of discussing violence is to find the culprit, enact justice, and do everything we can to prevent violence from happening in the future.

The outlook that you expressed earlier, namely that "Anything can motivate anyone to anything," does not help us toward that goal.

Well tough titties.

You can still strive towards that goal, but I can assure you, the range is huge. You will never be able to pin down the "culprit" because each person will be motivated by something different for the most part. Each person's anger will be motivated by something different. A guy coming home from work and beating up his wife one day because she didn't get dinner cooked on time and then the next night beating her because his dinner was cooked but had gone cold.. And the night after that because he just felt like hitting her.. You can't pin down the one motivation. Anything can motivate anyone to violence.

Do you eat chicken?

Rarely.

Or are you going to ask me if I swing a chicken above my head before I slaughter it as a sacrificial offering?

Aggressive chemo- and radiation therapy are not violent?

Nope. The after effects are annoying and painful, but as violent as cutting my head with a knife over and over again or whipping my back until it bled? No.

Why do you ask that question Wynn? I mean why take that line of questioning at all? Or are you just trying to be as offensive as you can be in your continued trolling?

Acting on greed, anger and delusion.

Delusion like acting on one's religious beliefs does not factor into it for you?

You can read people's minds?

No. Can you?

Why do you think they do it on that particular day for their particular religious belief? For fun? A family that whips a chicken around one's head and then kills it as a sacrificial offering is a family that has fun together?

 

[GeoffP]

slaughter - period - is cruel and violent ... its an unavoidable consequence of meat eating much like pregnancy is to progeny

And the additional cruelty of religious slaughter would be that margin of behaviour that could be described as "religious violence".

I am simply saying that the purely commercial model of it comes off worst since it translates as a worse environment for the victim in terms of living conditions and frequency

Frequency, possibly: but you would need to provide evidence for differences in living conditions.

So the non-religious minority is the consumerist driving force behind their economy?
How does that work?

Good question: how does that work? Because that's not what I said at all.

But actually it is broader than that since kosher regulates a stricter avoidance of disease for the victim (whereas factory farming involves post-mortem cosmetic surgery for cyst removal and the like)

That broader view is not relevant to the discussion of religious violence.

 

[Bells]

with what?
bread and watered down wine?

And they partake of it in the manner of inflicting injuries on Jesus?

Worship the injuries and say thank you for it..

I know quite a few catholics from the Philippines and I can sure you its fringe activity ... but that said feel free to rely on hyperbolic journalism

So says the man who brings up parents being motivated to rape their children because they are the parents of those children in a thread about religiously motivated violence and then tries to further derail it by bringing in commercial animal slaughter.

But even as a fringe movement, they are motivated by their religious belief to act and do what they do. They are motivated by their religious beliefs to be that violent. Just because it's a fringe does not mean they do not exist.

more misguided (to say the least you don't see the pope doing such things or even orchestrating them so obviously it must be relegated to fringe activity) ... much like its more accurate to describe parents who molest their children as misguided as opposed to be motivated to molest them on account of parenthood

And again, it does not negate the very simple fact that they are motivated by their religious beliefs to do what they do.

Get it yet?

i think its obvious that "parenthood" is not the contributing factor, but rather a host of other things contributing to the individual

Which really has nothing to do with this thread.

So why even bring it up?

Not really if it draws criticism from the same religious core and finds its expression in fringe groups.

IOW its a misdirection of religion much like molesting children is a misdirection of parenthood

Show me where Shiite Muslims criticise their fellow Shiite Muslims for enduring suffering on the day of Ashura, a very sacred day for Muslims?

I mean, do you even know why they beat and cut themselves? Do you even understand the motivation behind their actions, before you insult them further and call them a fringe section of their religion?

Once again if its not enacted or orchestrated by leaders (or even the main body of) of Catholicism it tends to indicate its fringe activity arising from individuals.

Do you even know anything about the Opus Dei?

The Pope even made a saint out of the founder of the order. It is an official structure within the Church and is sanction to exist within the Church by the leadership of said Church.

If you think the video you posted is violent you must have a hyper-liberal interpretation of the word .... it must even make an audience giving applause appear violent since they are pounding their hands together

You view men whipping themselves and cutting their heads with knives as being akin to an audience clapping?

What to speak of it being endorsed, there is a majority criticism from the very group you (beginning circa 14th century for the catholics) are trying to deem as motivating violence.

It can't be applied to the whole.

Otherwise I would deem theists such as yourself as being violent killers, simply by association.

so where do regular chicken eaters get their raw ingredients from?
trees?

Yes, because we pick up the chicken by its feet, swing it violently around our heads before we kill it as a sacrificial offering before we eat it.

It does not make it less violent.

Nor does it make it less religious.

 

[lightgigantic]

And the additional cruelty of religious slaughter would be that margin of behaviour that could be described as "religious violence".

If by additionally religiosity you have reduced consumption and reduced inferior living conditions for the victim you have reduced violence ... even though its much of a muchness as far as the final act is concerned.

Frequency, possibly: but you would need to provide evidence for differences in living conditions.

Kosher guidelines govern production as well as slaughter. During mad-cow and e-coli outbreaks it is even marketed to non-jews

Good question: how does that work? Because that's not what I said at all.

Then you had better try saying it again since the notion that tagging a host of extra injunctions to meat eating doesn't render consumption less frequent doesn't make sense at all.

That broader view is not relevant to the discussion of religious violence.

What on earth makes you say that?
Did you look at the Paul McCartney video I posted earlier?

How can you say being more prone disease and being bashed over the head for being afflicted as such is not a contributing factor to violence?

 

[lightgigantic]

Worship the injuries and say thank you for it..

thank you for the sacrifice for sin etc or thank you for nailing that SOB?

So says the man who brings up parents being motivated to rape their children because they are the parents of those children in a thread about religiously motivated violence and then tries to further derail it by bringing in commercial animal slaughter.

Just playing out the absurdity of caricaturing a group by highlighting a fringe aspect - glad you can finally appreciate it.

As for commercial animal slaughter, not sure how that is far field since you are the one who got the ball rolling on the topic

But even as a fringe movement, they are motivated by their religious belief to act and do what they do. They are motivated by their religious beliefs to be that violent. Just because it's a fringe does not mean they do not exist.

And they are critiqued by the very traditions they appear in.

IOW you have a vast majority that not only don't participate it, not only don't endorse it, but actively critique it.

And again, it does not negate the very simple fact that they are motivated by their religious beliefs to do what they do.

Get it yet?

So analysis of parental incest also plays parenthood as the motivating factor for what they do?

And stands as an outstanding example of parenthood causes violence?
(and can even be used as a tool for an attitude of anti-parenting)

(let me know when you get it ...)

Which really has nothing to do with this thread.

So why even bring it up?

Because it highlights the general principles you apply to "religion motivates violence".

IOW you insist on key examples to highlight your claim while actively ignoring the context that establishes notions to the contrary.

This is why you say statements to the effect that "Catholicism has elements of flagellation and is therefore violent" despite having an open policy (compounded by philosophical critiques of the principles the behavior is setting out to achieve) to the contrary as early as the 1300's
:shrug:

Show me where Shiite Muslims criticise their fellow Shiite Muslims for enduring suffering on the day of Ashura, a very sacred day for Muslims?
I mean, do you even know why they beat and cut themselves? Do you even understand the motivation behind their actions, before you insult them further and call them a fringe section of their religion?

Carol Jackson, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said the prosecution was not an attack upon the practices or ceremonies of Shia Muslims, adding that the prosecution relied partly on evidence given by the president of the local Shia community centre. It was the first case of its kind to be prosecuted by the CPS.

For Shia Muslims the death of Hussain is a period of intense mourning, leading some to beat and whip themselves. The practice is not compulsory and some Shia authorities prohibit it, while others say it should be done only if certain conditions are met.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/28/islam.religion

Your inability to interpret the act as anything but the pursuit of violence simply highlights your small-mindedness

Do you even know anything about the Opus Dei?

I watched the Da Vinci code.
Does that count?

The Pope even made a saint out of the founder of the order. It is an official structure within the Church and is sanction to exist within the Church by the leadership of said Church.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortification_in_Roman_Catholic_teaching#The_need_for_prudence

You view men whipping themselves and cutting their heads with knives as being akin to an audience clapping?

By your logic doctors are also violent since they are also cutting people.

IOW all you are doing is exhibiting your cultural prejudice by overlaying your own interpretation on why you think they are doing it while blatantly ignoring critiques and guidelines for the practices for when they over-step the mark

It can't be applied to the whole.

Otherwise I would deem theists such as yourself as being violent killers, simply by association.

then its obvious there is some other contributing factor to what you are interpreting aside from "religion"

Yes, because we pick up the chicken by its feet, swing it violently around our heads before we kill it as a sacrificial offering before we eat it.

You simply get someone else to do it for you
:shrug:

Meanwhile if you were vegetarian you would have avoided the whole schmozzle ... even if you were a jew

It does not make it less violent.

Nor does it make it less religious.

Actually if we are playing increased frequency as a factor for increased violence it does become more violent ....