Show that there is *religiously* motivated violence

[lightgigantic]

None of which were relevant, LG. Not one response by either you or Wynn has stood up.

and saying that automatically makes your statements stand up?

:bugeye:

If you really think that you should try explaining yourself as opposed to simply extolling the glories of your genius ..... seriously if you weren't interested in discussion why not just give the bottom line of your opinion and leave?

:shrug:

 

[wynn]

Either prove that all of the examples of religious violence given were not motivated, in part or in whole, by religion(something that is impossible for either you or Wynn to do), or you can admit that your argument was invalid and start again.

Here's the OP again:

Simple:

There is all that talk about how religion motivates people to be violent and abusive.

Show that the violence is indeed religiously motivated - and not perhaps politically, economically, a mistake etc.

In other words, some people have the stance that there exists religiously motivated violence.

I summoned the people who hold this stance or anyone who supports it, to show that this stance is true.
The burden of proof is on them.

 

[wynn]

First show where it is stated - if it is standard doctrine then there should be ample examples?

Oh. Since you already declared my stance to be "silly" and such, I assumed you are thoroughly familiar with all the religious scriptures, and that you are above and beyond anything they can offer.

 

[Sarkus]

Oh. Since you already declared my stance to be "silly" and such, I assumed you are thoroughly familiar with all the religious scriptures, and that you are above and beyond anything they can offer.

I did not declare it to be silly... I said that I find your stance rather silly - i.e. my subjective view of your position is that it is silly. This has not changed.

At least if you provide evidence from the "standard doctrine" that your definition is at least used within those circles then it would explain part of what I currently find silly: it would explain your usage / definition, but still not your insistance upon it being used unilaterally, which I would still find to be silly.

So feel free to support the definitions that you wish to use. :shrug:

 

[wynn]

At least if you provide evidence from the "standard doctrine" that your definition is at least used within those circles then it would explain part of what I currently find silly: it would explain your usage / definition, but still not your insistance upon it being used unilaterally, which I would still find to be silly.

So when you insist on unilaterally using a definition - this is allright.

But when others do it, it is not.


:bugeye:

 

[wynn]

lobha:
Greed; passion; unskillful desire. Also rāga. One of three unwholesome roots (mūla) in the mind.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#l

moha:
Delusion; ignorance (avijjā).. One of three unwholesome roots (mūla) in the mind.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#m

dosa:
Aversion; hatred; anger. One of three unwholesome roots (mūla) in the mind.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#dosa



This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "There are these three roots of what is unskillful. Which three? Greed as a root of what is unskillful, aversion as a root of what is unskillful, delusion as a root of what is unskillful. These are the three roots of what is unskillful."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/iti/iti.3.050-099.than.html



Search ATI for +greed +anger +delusion to get a sense of what they are about.

 

[Sarkus]

So when you insist on unilaterally using a definition - this is allright.

But when others do it, it is not.

When your definition goes against the normal usage, and certainly as significantly as yours seems to, then you should at least support your usage, and demonstrate that it has the meaning you are using at least somewhere other than in your own head.

If you wish to question definitions I use, feel free to ask.

 

[Sarkus]

lobha
moha
dosa

So your position is that, in Buddhism it is held that unwelcome actions (e.g. violence) are only motivated by three things: greed, anger or delusion?

Wow, almost 40 pages for you to finally state where your position stems from. Do you not realise that you might save a lot of back and forth argument by merely stating this as being the Buddhist position, and that you adhere to it? Instead you merely dispute everyone else's position and claim yours as truth. :shrug:

Are you able to demonstrate the truth of your position, then, rather than it merely being your belief/faith/opinion?

Further, your position still involves a rather loose definition of "motivation" - given that your source defines those 3 things as: "The fundamental conditions in the mind that determine the moral quality — skillful (kusala) or unskillful (akusala) — of one's intentional actions."
I.e. these three things are considered the underlying condition of the mind when performing "unskillful" intentional actions.
There is nothing there that suggests that these are the motivators... but merely the conditions that are in place.
Anything that gives rise to those conditions being in place might also be considered motivators.

And lastly, where does it mention, among this source, that violence is always morally "unskillful", and thus by Buddhist understanding only motivated (using your definition) by anger, hatred or delusion?

 

[Sock puppet path]

Interfaith BROOM FIGHT!!!!!

 

[Bells]

Interfaith BROOM FIGHT!!!!!

I know I shouldn't laugh.

But there is something about the numerous clips I have seen of this.. of priests going into a full on brawl with brooms... that quite literally had me in near hysterics.

Don't ask me why.

In other words, some people have the stance that there exists religiously motivated violence.

I summoned the people who hold this stance or anyone who supports it, to show that this stance is true.
The burden of proof is on them.

Hmmm.. and how is that going for you so far? I mean your stance has been tantamount to sticking your head in sand. But how is that working for you?

I will get back to your previous post later. But first I wanted to ask you a question.

What do you make of the sexual segregation in areas of Israel, where women are banned from the public sphere (like walking down the road or even attending scrhool) because of the ultra-orthodox Jew's beliefs? To the point where Haredi men attack, spit at and verbally abuse and accost primary school girls (calling one 8 year old at least a whore and spitting on her) attending a religious school near the area, as well as anyone associated with said school? Would you deem that to be religiously motivated violence?

Would you deem religious segregation to be a form of violence (say women being forced to sit at the back of the bus and if they do not, are violently attacked)? Where women are even physically barred from walking down the street and if they do, they are set upon by males and called whores and prostitues and spat on? Would you view that as being violent? And what if such beliefs of segregating the sexes stems solely from their religious beliefs?

Would you view that as being religiously motivated violence?

 

[GeoffP]

and saying that automatically makes your statements stand up?

:bugeye:

If you really think that you should try explaining yourself as opposed to simply extolling the glories of your genius ..... seriously if you weren't interested in discussion why not just give the bottom line of your opinion and leave?

See, the problem is that I've pointed out religiously-motivated violence again and again. What I get in response is not an actual treatment of the issues, but increasingly absurd digression: it can't be religiously-motivated violence because it's not what I, personally, believe, or it can't be religiously-motivated violence because it's really about greed, and greed is not religion, or it can't be religiously-motivated violence because other systems are just as bad: none of which are satisfactory qualifications. Wynn in particular is so adroit in digression that he has managed to reduce the argument so far as to become a treatise on the evils of free will in order to avoid the central issue of motivation, which the OP was intended to address: religious texts, themselves, do not speak and cannot compel anyone to behave in any specific way, so there can be no such thing as religious motivation, a leap of logic so profound as to make Tom Cruise scratch his head and wonder about the architecture of his arguments. It's a fundamental - and essentially deliberate - misunderstanding of the word motivation. Motivation stems from belief, and belief can be in many, many things, including purported gospels from a deity. Done. Thus, there is religiously-motivated violence. There can, similarly,- be politically-motivated violence, irreligiously motivated violence (the destruction of Jewish communities in the USSR comes to mind), violence for the actual sake of greed (and not this nebulous assertion about the overriding existence of greed as a ubiquitous motivating factor that completely replaces religion, as if the destruction of Native American religious systems by Christian missionaries or the mindless persecution of religious minorities in the ME could be anything but hatred for another's belief system) or violence for the sake of nothing at all. This is profoundly obvious.

The ad absurdio depths to which this thread have sunk beggar all belief. Next up, I predict we'll have Wynn pull one seemingly exploitable statement out of my screed, above (heck, the word "screed" seems like something he'd latch onto to blithely condemn the post) and drop a one-liner nothing on top of it as some kind of 'rebuttal'. But nothing you two have posted are effective rebuttals of anything: 'greed' no more compels a person to take salutary action than religion does. No text of economics calls for the blood of the weak in anything more than a distal, remote abjuration to get all you can get, whereas a number of religious texts and innumerable believers of every faith are agreed on a set of quite explicit instructions regarding the murder, exploitation or extirpation of their neighbors and neighboring nations alike. There is nothing comparable in this supposed declaration of universal greed to these instructions: and they are instructions, unless you think "hey, asshole" is actually a kind of abstract expression about the individuality of man. Greed is as abstract as belief, as abstract as religion, and the constant refrain of Wynn (and sometimes you) to the above supposition is a statement of inability in the discussion.

I've generally taken a very light hand with believers on this forum insofar as their beliefs do not conflict with humanitarian impulse, but, while I hate to say it, I now greatly regret this perspective. It would seem that in the intangible will to foster the love of whatever deity, you two have chosen to sever ties with reality. Would any of the Abrahamic versions of God appreciate such an immoral sacrifice? I agree that it is indeed pointless to continue, because each and every argument countering your assertion gets whittled down to reductio ad nihilio: nothing from something, or nothing from effectively nothing (greed). When confronted with this kind of behaviour, I find myself stopping and asking whether or not there should be any discussion of religion on this forum whatsoever, or any allowance at all permitted to religious trolling. Some of the mods have expressed this opinion: initially I disagreed, but I now doubt my perspective. It is clear that in the rush to prop up the faltering walls, neither of you really understands the proposition anyway, nor the concept of "motivation", except to argue in a roundabout way that motivation apparently does not exist, and that there is apparently only unstructured and untrained free will, like Brownian motion of the soul. That is the peak of madness: if a book seemingly cannot inspire motivation (Mein Kampf, anyone?) then what exactly can? One could as easily say that Nazism (oh yes, he went Godwin) did not inspire anti-Semitic violence in 1930's Germany, since a book after all cannot really make anyone do anything. Sound ridiculous? Of course it does. But that's what you two are making of this argument. Your rush to defend, commendable in its way, has wandered into the mud which you are telling us is not mud, or does not exist. It does not stand, sir. It is a farce of the worst kind. Enough. To wit, neither of you have seized on the supposed political or economic excuses for our examples of religious violence (as if one of those philosophies necessarily trumps another). Another blithe error, here:

Here's the OP again:

"Show that the violence is indeed religiously motivated - and not perhaps politically, economically, a mistake etc. "

"A mistake" is not the grounding of religious violence in innocent misunderstanding. One does not hang an Iranian woman for having a prayer meeting in the wrong religion 'accidentally'. ("Look, mate, I've said it a hundred times, I've no idea how she got her head in that noose. The fact that it's completely coincidental with that warrant we issued for her arrest and execution is just that: pure coincidence. Now if you don't mind, I've got to get on and, er, not hang some homosexuals. Hope they don't have accidents, like.")

To that end, I have reported this thread and begged the mod in charge to put out of its godforsaken misery. Not even electronic text should have to suffer like this.

Interfaith BROOM FIGHT!!!!!

There's going to be a - what? - broomfight.

 

[wynn]

Wow, almost 40 pages for you to finally state where your position stems from.

The burden is on those who claim that there exists religiously motivated violence.

Look at the OP: I didn't begin it by saying "I disagree with those who claim that there exists religiously motivated violence."

I summoned those who hold that there exists religiously motivated violence, to demonstrate such.
They claim such violence exists: I tell them to convince me.

While I personally do not see how religion can motivate violence, I am open to suggestions.

Do you have any?

What exactly is religious about, say, a man shooting another in the name of Jesus?
That it is in the name of Jesus?

 

[wynn]

What do you make of the sexual segregation in areas of Israel, where women are banned from the public sphere (like walking down the road or even attending scrhool) because of the ultra-orthodox Jew's beliefs? To the point where Haredi men attack, spit at and verbally abuse and accost primary school girls (calling one 8 year old at least a whore and spitting on her) attending a religious school near the area, as well as anyone associated with said school? Would you deem that to be religiously motivated violence?

Would you deem religious segregation to be a form of violence (say women being forced to sit at the back of the bus and if they do not, are violently attacked)? Where women are even physically barred from walking down the street and if they do, they are set upon by males and called whores and prostitues and spat on? Would you view that as being violent? And what if such beliefs of segregating the sexes stems solely from their religious beliefs?

Would you view that as being religiously motivated violence?

What is religious about it, except you and some others calling it that way?

 

[GeoffP]

What is religious about it, except you and some others calling it that way?

Perhaps that writings in their religion call for the segregation of men and women and can be interpreted to allow for the behaviour described above? Would the "some others" include the Haredi, themselves?

Ah: but I see I have fallen into your eloquent trap of "books cain't make a body do nothin; they's just books". Well played, sir.

 

[gmilam]

Interfaith BROOM FIGHT!!!!!

Obviously the clergy are not "truly religious".

 

[GeoffP]

Obviously the clergy are not "truly religious".

There are no broom fights in the NT. Only the word is the word.

 

[Arioch]

@LG --

to which there are numerous rebuttals ...

None of which were valid, thus my arguments, every single one of them, still stand.

http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=153

I guess that is as good a point as any to indicate where you gave up trying to explain yourself.

Nice try but boredom does not equal folding under pressure.

I asked you a specific question(whether or not you believed that religion can inspire "good" acts, using standard terminology to define "good") and the only thing you did was respond with completely irrelevant red herrings. You flat out refused to answer and no amount of pressing by myself(or others) would get you or Wynn to answer the question(possibly because you knew that any answer you gave would absolutely destroy your own arguments, here or elsewhere), so I simply refused to waste my time with you.

Not only did you waste my time with pointless red herrings, but you twisted my words so much that they bear only a passing resemblance of my previous line of argumentation. So here we have straw man arguments and red herrings, both logical fallacies signaling that you don't have any valid arguments to stand on. But do feel free to try again, all you've succeeded in doing is pointing out your own failures so far, I highly doubt that will change.

From there on in you simply concede defeat via ad hom

Either support this assertion that I've committed ad hominem attacks with hard evidence or withdraw it.

@wynn --

In other words, some people have the stance that there exists religiously motivated violence.

I summoned the people who hold this stance or anyone who supports it, to show that this stance is true.
The burden of proof is on them.

I see now that you truly don't understand what the burden of proof is. We provided you evidence that religion can motivate violence, siting scripture and actual events, and you have yet to be able to counter even one example, therefore you have lost your debate. When the side with the burden of proof actually provides evidence then the burden of proof no longer rests with them but with the opposition, you must then prove that their evidence is either insufficient(at which point the burden shifts again) or show, through evidence, that your argument is correct.

So far you've done neither, and given that this thread is almost forty pages long I really don't think you're going to be able to, though attempting to do so for once rather than arguing from some obscure and asinine personal definition which is likely shared by far less than one percent of the population(and in definitions the popular usage of a term is a valid reason for using it as a definition) and which the lion's share of the world's population would vehemently reject(most religious people would take offense at no longer being considered religious) would be an improvement over your current behavior.

So when you insist on unilaterally using a definition - this is allright.

But when others do it, it is not.

When the definition in question is a personal one that does not reflect all of those currently under the umbrella of the already existing definition then it's really not the best idea. Better to stick to the current definitions and argue from there to avoid needless confusion(as has been witnessed in this thread due to your pigheadedness) and the need to go and ascertain all of the required definitions individually(again, as has been witnessed in this thread due to your pigheadedness). Beyond that you would have to show why your definition is better than the already existing one, something you've utterly failed to do, and give us your reasoning as to why you use your definition instead of the one that already exists for the word that you're using.

In this thread you've displayed a breathtaking departure from the standard definition of what constitutes a religion and made several claims that are worrisome in nature(such as specific religious leaders being competent to slaughter all of humanity). You appear to have disconnected your beliefs and thoughts from the reality around, which is that religion(just like any other belief system) can motivate violence in word and in deed.

Religions are, at their core, a set of beliefs about the world around us that their adherents share, whether those beliefs speak of god or not. Such beliefs tend to be supernatural in nature and virtually always include some sort of punishment or justice after death(with absolutely no mechanism ever being suggested). While other systems of organizing beliefs can fit with this there's one thing that all modern religions have in common that most other such systems(with the notable exceptions of patriotism and nationalism), and that thing is a ludicrously high value for religious faith(separated from "faith" in squishy mortals by the fact that we have large sums of evidence that squishy mortals exist and none that anything supernatural does, as well as by a few other things, there have been entire threads on the subject so there's no need to delve into it here).

I think that should suffice as a rudimentary definition of religion, and I'm sure that others here will bring up key points that I missed.

While I personally do not see how religion can motivate violence

You don't see it because you don't want to, after nearly forty pages it's been explained again and again. The only one who is failing here is you, not us.

I am open to suggestions.

Do you have any?

Oh we've had plenty, but I can attempt to break it down further for you. Religions are composed of people who believe certain things. These beliefs inform their actions and indeed their entire view of the world in most cases. If these beliefs call for violence then the motivator for violence based on those beliefs would be religion.

Your original six points, posted on the first page of this thread and in at least one previous thread, are absolute bollocks. While some of them are reasonable I have already shown that point six, which is crucial to your argument, is logically fallacious in that we must assume no such thing in order to ascertain the motive for a particular action. Beyond that though I also showed that if we were to take your six points seriously then we could never ascertain the motives for any action, violent or not, because we can never make that sixth assumption.

However all of this is irrelevant as we've shown you examples of religious violence from the real world, even contemporary examples are as "numerous as the fish in the sea", to quote the bible. If the real world doesn't agree with you then you're wrong. If you don't understand something about the real world that just means that you don't understand it, not that it's not happening.

What exactly is religious about, say, a man shooting another in the name of Jesus?
That it is in the name of Jesus?

Man A believes that Man B is the antichrist who will bring about the End of Days.

In order to prevent Man B from doing so, Man A shoots him dozens of times(after all, these statanspawn can be quite resilient).

Man A killed Man B because his religious beliefs inspired him to.

What, exactly, is so hard to understand about this?

What is religious about it, except you and some others calling it that way?

The violence against other religions is built into the holy texts of all of the abrahamic faiths, as is the repression of women. Even in the NT, with Paul even going to far as to say that women should be silent in church and should never teach men because that was the order of the world according to their religious beliefs(men were made first, women second and so that they may be subservient to men).

Of course if you'd read the bible you would know this, so I suspect that, despite all of your grandstanding here about how we understand so little about religion, you are the ignorant one here. You can't just ignore the holy texts that these people worship, and in many cases hold to be infallible.

@Sarkus --

And lastly, where does it mention, among this source, that violence is always morally "unskillful", and thus by Buddhist understanding only motivated (using your definition) by anger, hatred or delusion?

It doesn't. If you go back in the thread(and I mean way back) you'll find where Wynn mentions that one of the Bodhisattva vows is to kill those who contemplate harm to others. Setting aside, for the moment, that this means that they vow to kill off the entire human species, here Wynn acknowledges that violence is not always motivated by those things. Ending a life against the will of that person is a violation of not only their right to life but to their very person and body, and such a violation is by definition and necessity, violent.

So if you're willing to go back that far(page two) then you'll see that Wynn admits on the second page that religiously motivated violence exists.

 

[Sarkus]

The burden is on those who claim that there exists religiously motivated violence.

And it was provided on the opening page.

Look at the OP: I didn't begin it by saying "I disagree with those who claim that there exists religiously motivated violence."

Your subsequent posts have confirmed that to be your position.

I summoned those who hold that there exists religiously motivated violence, to demonstrate such.
They claim such violence exists: I tell them to convince me.

One can not convince someone who has their head in the sand.

While I personally do not see how religion can motivate violence, I am open to suggestions.

No, you're quite obviously not. You put your head in the sand by insisting upon specific definitions that, from your arguments, suggest there can be no religious violence by definition.

"Do you consider this to be religiously motivated violence?"
"No - only X, Y, and Z can motivate violence."

Hmmm - not really open to suggestions are you when work from such narrow beginnings.

What exactly is religious about, say, a man shooting another in the name of Jesus?
That it is in the name of Jesus?

It's not a question of whether the violence is "religious" or not (i.e. part of the religion) but whether the religion motivated the violence.
One does not need to adhere to the tenets of X to have X as the motivator of your action, nor does the action need to be sanctioned/recommended by X. X merely needs to motivate the action.

Oh, of course, you work from such narrow definitions such that only anger, greed or delusion can motivate violence.

 

[Arioch]

@Sarkus --

Hypocritical definitions at that.

 

[Sarkus]

@Sarkus --

It doesn't. If you go back in the thread(and I mean way back) you'll find where Wynn mentions that one of the Bodhisattva vows is to kill those who contemplate harm to others. Setting aside, for the moment, that this means that they vow to kill off the entire human species, here Wynn acknowledges that violence is not always motivated by those things. Ending a life against the will of that person is a violation of not only their right to life but to their very person and body, and such a violation is by definition and necessity, violent.

So if you're willing to go back that far(page two) then you'll see that Wynn admits on the second page that religiously motivated violence exists.

Well, no doubt he will argue that he defines such actions as non-violent according to the Buddhist usage of the term.