JCC Arena The Theist/Atheist Thunderdome™

I'm not asserting primary cause though. I'm asserting that religion is basically a perfect vehicle to tie those myriad issues together under the banner of righteousness. Would the crusades have happened without religion? hard to say, but really... no? Unless you're stopping a hegemony over a religious empire from spreading? Etc etc

 

i would say the nature of the fourth crusade suggests that yes, they very well might have

 

I wouldn't deny that it has a unifying power, but so do, say, intense nationalism and political ideologies. In all three of those cases it seems to me that they really just grab onto a prevailing sentiment and catalyze the organization. On the flip side they can all foster some of that sentiment in the first place. I don't think you can point to just one and declare it the most dangerous or best at organizing or whatever.

 

Sort of like politics.

 

Well, no.

I get what you're trying for, EvilQ, but no.

Maik, Ramzah - my point is that religion, being in my view a social construct, has been the best catalyst for the worst in humanity. There's no suggestion that nationalism hasn't also been a potent force for this, but nationalism is a fairly recent force and tribalism has been unable to muster a comparative level of malice before it disappeared as a viable force.

 

Super 3D Noah's Ark

 

Malaysian Izlamz, like an OP, delivers. MH-17 was punishment from Allah because they serve alcohol on the plane.

 

yeah um, yeah.

 

Man, that is par with "gays cause hurricanes" for sheer what the christ value.

 

Can we not just get rid of religion now, please? I'm sick of idiots tying events to their made up fantasies. The plane was shot down because Russians are four-letter c-words. Not because an invisible friend smote it.

 

mods plz ban ender and timmo for account sharing

 

Really?

I see many similarities.

 

In other news, God is a really **** driver.

 

Well, hey, God didn't actually kill anybody, he let Mr Oliveri live. You know, like how God let Isaac live.

 

i think your point that tribalism hasn't been able to muster a comparative level of malice towards the other than religion has is wrong. i mean, there's really no way of testing this now since tribalism isn't really a force any more. but one need look no further than the Rwandan genocide or something for evidence at how deep tribal tensions can run, and how destructive they can be.

also, religion is hardly unifying. i mean, i'm a christian, but i find myself arguing way more with other christians about the stupid **** they believe than like, buddhists or something.

 

the rwandan genocide isnt really a great example of "tribalism" in the classic sense, as the "tribes" involved were really racial groupings set up by the belgian and german colonial administration of the area. the hutus were the field slaves and the tutsis were the house slaves (taller, lighter skinned people were picked for this duty). the hutu and tutsi ethnic identities of today are descendents of this system

 

It comes down to the absolute truth problem. When humanity thinks it's found one, whether it's religious or not, suffering follows almost inevitably - because the moment you think you've got an immutable, absolute truth, anyone who disagrees with you is wrong or positively malicious because they're trying to lead people astray. It creates the circumstances for inquisitions to come about. Political absolute truths are no different - witness Russia under Stalin, down to Lysenko suborning science itself to politics, making science look a lot like fundamentalist, evangelical religion - but religion is prone to this because it deals in metaphysics and it's very easy to succumb to turning a metaphysical analogue to an absolute, revealed truth. Dogma is about the most superficial look at religion you can get, but it does have one thing going for it: it proposes the primacy of holding ideas over beliefs -- for the simple and unarguable reason that you can change an idea.

 

Well actually my point was that relative to religion or nationalism, tribalism hasn't been able to muster comparative malice is simply about the effective reach of tribalism. Tribalism by nature cannot unique tribes; it's 1 v 1 rather than Group v Group. If that makes sense?

 

I don't even understand the grammatical construction of this clause. Practicing beezel-speak too much?

 

Shush you

 

I do honestly want to know what distinction you're making, though. What are you talking about?

 

So you don't need religion to be racist.