Is religion at the root of present day atrocities?

[marco]

In Manchester, England, we had a suicide bomber murder 22 people, many of them children. As usual the perpetrator was a Muslim and as usual we are reminded that Islam is a religion of peace. But it spawns people to murder innocent folk, usually with the pointless observation that Allah is great.

It is possible to leaf through the Koran and find verses that justify cruelty and we can also find verses that condemn it.

Is there an answer to this never ending circle of violence?
Does the problem reside with values that belong to a barbaric age?

[marco]

Even if the “person� is one’s creator who we know loves us and our child and would never do anything that wasn’t for our or our child’s own good?

I'm afraid the pages of my book where this is written have been torn out. There is no evidence in earthquakes, tsunamis, diseases and tragedies that God loves. If indeed he destroyed the world's population in a flood and ordered an ancient man to build a boat to protect himself and his family, there is little love there.

I think you fail to understand who God is. You equate Him to a mere fallible mortal and you also don’t seem to understand that our time on this earth is not the end of the story.

We can only work with what we are told.

Tough love can seem cruel to those who underestimate the love and mercy of the giver. God did not hurt Abraham’s son.

The wickedness was not in the outcome but in the requirement that Abraham should take his son and murder him. It is a stupid story giving evil a future excuse. Love ceases to be love when it manifests itself in killing suckling babies. But when we start seeing death and love, we can claim any folly as truth.

[RightReason]

[Replying to marco]

I'm afraid the pages of my book where this is written have been torn out. There is no evidence in earthquakes, tsunamis, diseases and tragedies that God loves. If indeed he destroyed the world's population in a flood and ordered an ancient man to build a boat to protect himself and his family, there is little love there.

I wonder if we are reading the same book. My book describes a loving, merciful, just, slow to anger, miracle working, feeding, healing the sick, curing the blind, wise, all knowing, Father, provider, consoler, kind, giving, friend, truthful, creator of life.

It is still my opinion that your worldview prevents you from correctly reading Scripture and Revelation. It’s odd to me to judge God in the same way one would judge a fallible mortal human being and to not read Scripture as a story about Good vs. Evil and with a beginning and an end.

We can only work with what we are told.

Unfortunately, we often mistakenly work with what we think we’ve been told. Much can cloud what man hears.

The wickedness was not in the outcome but in the requirement that Abraham should take his son and murder him.

Again, this then would only be hearing half the story. Like I said, as often with a tough love approach the means look cruel and harsh, but they are effective and is to the advantage of all involved in the end.

It is a stupid story giving evil a future excuse.

I disagree. Evil unfortunately doesn’t need an excuse. Evil has been done in the name of everything under the sun and the excuses given are always just that excuses and rationalizations from the evil doer. The evil doer will always need to find some reason, but that’s not difficult to do. It is odd to me that in seeing how much evil there is in the world and the overwhelming majority of it not done in the name of God that you can blame God when evil people claim to be doing something in His name. Sorry, it just doesn’t logically flow.

when we start seeing death and love, we can claim any folly as truth.

Bingo! We can claim anything we like to justify evil and man has done just that. You’d rather judge God and His ways than Satan or man’s. Like I said, we have a different worldview.

[marco]

I wonder if we are reading the same book. My book describes a loving, merciful, just, slow to anger, miracle working, feeding, healing the sick, curing the blind, wise, all knowing, Father, provider, consoler, kind, giving, friend, truthful, creator of life.

We're reading the same book but you are omitting to read the relevant passages. The epithets you attach to the biblical God are nice selections: he is SAID to be slow-to anger, merciful and loving. His actions speak otherwise.

It is still my opinion that your worldview prevents you from correctly reading Scripture and Revelation. It’s odd to me to judge God in the same way one would judge a fallible mortal human being and to not read Scripture as a story about Good vs. Evil and with a beginning and an end.

We can turn swords into ploughshares if we wish. I read Scripture as she is written; I think the authors created Yahweh and endowed him with their own traits. Revelation - for me - is as nonsensical as Edward Lear. I DO know what others interpret it to be, but a wise priest once opined that he felt the author was drunk when he wrote it. It seems so.
As for Good v Evil - sometimes Yahweh seems to be fighting for the other side then.
But in the food-mixer logic of apologists bad is sometimes good: we are just seeing through a glass darkly.

It is odd to me that in seeing how much evil there is in the world and the overwhelming majority of it not done in the name of God that you can blame God when evil people claim to be doing something in His name. Sorry, it just doesn’t logically flow.

I agree what you suggest has no logical flow but then I DON'T blame God but the belief in God and what he wants. My boyhood mentors told me he wanted me to love and serve him and then be happy with him in the next world. Pious deduction.

You’d rather judge God and His ways than Satan or man’s. Like I said, we have a different worldview.

No, it is a matter of judging the various supporters of the various gods for doing evil in the name of the being they create. I do not believe God said: " Suffer not a witch to live." Man did, and acted on man's instruction. I don't believe Allah wants innocent people bombed; man thinks he does and acts accordingly.

[marco]

I don't believe Allah wants innocent people bombed; man thinks he does and acts accordingly.

I don't believe Allah wants anything - man does. Sooner or later we will have to awake from our silent shock and address the words: Allahu Akbar in an international way. It is absurd to reply to outrages, such as the present one in New York that replicates the many we have grown accustomed to here in Europe with the platitudes that "not all...." and " religion of peace..." We can strike our breasts with "mea culpa" but that is no answer.

The Muslim community must come forward and offer concrete proposals for removing the evil from its midst. Many mosques are already incubators for terrorist ideas. The "them and us" situation and their chosen insularity have to go. Preferably so should Allah and Yahweh, but that's not going to happen.

[psychoslice]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

Organized religion always separates us from each other, they believe they only have the truth and everyone else is wrong, pure arrogance. The so called truth is found within each one of us, not in any particular religion, all religion can do is point you to truth, it is not the truth itself.

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

Organized religion always separates us from each other, they believe they only have the truth and everyone else is wrong, pure arrogance. The so called truth is found within each one of us, not in any particular religion, all religion can do is point you to truth, it is not the truth itself.

In some cases it may point towards a truth as in the beatitudes but frequently it obsesses with God and his punishment for sin. In the case of Islam it fulminates against those who don't believe and thus gives licence to killing God's enemies. One cannot ignore the fact that atrocities are finalised with a word in praise of God. Those who love God more than people lose some of their humanity.

[JP Cusick]

I don't believe Allah wants anything - man does. Sooner or later we will have to awake from our silent shock and address the words: Allahu Akbar in an international way. It is absurd to reply to outrages, such as the present one in New York that replicates the many we have grown accustomed to here in Europe with the platitudes that "not all...." and " religion of peace..." We can strike our breasts with "mea culpa" but that is no answer.

The Muslim community must come forward and offer concrete proposals for removing the evil from its midst. Many mosques are already incubators for terrorist ideas. The "them and us" situation and their chosen insularity have to go. Preferably so should Allah and Yahweh, but that's not going to happen.

Of course this just completely ignores the reality of the conflict:

As like the Western support for the Jewish State committing crimes and atrocities against the Palestinian people and still continuing.

The murder of hundreds of thousand if not multiple millions of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria and the displacement of tens of millions more.

But tell the Muslims not to fight back any more - because that is the unjust morality being trumpeted by the West.

Westerners (including the USA) want the Muslims to provide a solution = because the violent Western invaders are damn sure not going to provide any solution worth having.

Those who love God more than people lose some of their humanity.

That is so very true.

It would also be true to love thy Country more than people is the same loss.

And to love thy self more than people would be the same loss too.

[marco]

As like the Western support for the Jewish State committing crimes and atrocities against the Palestinian people and still continuing.

Israel has been placed in the centre of hell. You are possibly a victim of Hamas propaganda; Hamas allows Palestinians to die in places where they have deliberately located rocket sites. Palestinian deaths win popularity for Hamas. The only murders in Afghanistan and Syria are done by Muslims against Muslims. You seem to ignore this. Personally I agree we should leave Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq to get on with their in-fighting and stop trying to bring them civilisation.

But tell the Muslims not to fight back any more - because that is the unjust morality being trumpeted by the West.

They do fight but with each other. Killing children in a European city is not fighting back. You are confused on this issue. If the West were really serious about eradication they have more powerful weapons. The fight is not against Muslims, some of whom fight on our side, at least speciously; the fight is against barbarity that has survived into the 21st century. Many Muslims seem to be victims of religious propaganda, encouraged to bare their teeth when Muhammad is mocked. We need education.

[JP Cusick]

Israel has been placed in the centre of hell.

And just who put them there?

They are the ones stealing the land from the Palestinians.

We need education.

That is probably just a Freudian slip.

That yes you and yours do need some proper education - they the Muslims do not.

[marco]

They are the ones stealing the land from the Palestinians.

The Israelis stole no land. Those with authority put them there, as had long been promised. The Palestinians had no land. The Palestinians are second only to the Israelis as far as Arab hatred goes. They are being used. We get the wrong message in the West, thanks to the success of Hamas propaganda.


And yes, WE ALL need education and we need education for the Middle East to counteract some of the verses in the Koran that are providing jihadists with excuses for murder.

Freud didn't slip in that way, incidentally. He's often traduced.