Why Be Interested In Other Religions?

[goodlife]

Regardless of where you live, you have no doubt seen for yourself how religion affects the lives of millions of people.

[benhilton]

Hypo - do the Witnesses knock doors in "Gangsta" neighbourhoods - yes , I've seen them do it .
Waterboatman - are you aware of the origins of why your (self - chosen ) avatar has come to be such a famous symbol worldwide ?
Goodlife - this week we have been and will be reading extensively from the scriptures with homilies from the priest explaining . Last night's vigil , several readings . This afternoon ,several more . Tomorrow's vigil again several readings .
I'm a Catholic but I have great respect for the JW's (see my comment to Hypo above )

[Khandro]

waterboatman; [Religion is] // the biggest cause of blood letting in history.//

Completely untrue as has been demonstrated time and time again on various threads. Look to history; the Mongol hordes, the USSR, WWII, Pol Pot, Maoist China, and more, all secular, and responsible for countless millions of human deaths and suffering.
Go figure!

[jomifl]

/Yes Naomi,the tears of those being oppressed” have become a torrent. They are shed by victims of countless “acts of oppression” all over the world, and you don,t cares about them.—Ecclesiastes 4:1. /
Naomi mentioned in the bible...amazing

[jomifl]

/Buddhism has not limited itself to religious activities /

what exactly are 'religious activities'?

[jomifl]

/Completely untrue as has been demonstrated time and time again on various threads. Look to history; the Mongol hordes, the USSR, WWII, Pol Pot, Maoist China, and more, all secular, and responsible for countless millions of human deaths and suffering.
Go figure! /
Can you attach some 'figures' to that Khandro.

[Khandro]

j.//Can you attach some 'figures' to that Khandro.//

I could, but don't be lazy, start here
http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/dictat.html

[jomifl]

So that's the political genocides...how about the religious slaughters?

[goodlife]

No he envy the happy ones, that have a good knowledge.

[naomi24]

Goodlife, //No he envy the happy ones, that have a good knowledge. //

Who 'he'?

[Khandro]

//how about the religious slaughters?//

Your move! Actually, one or two on that list are religiously motivated; Iran v. Iraq for example.

[jomifl]

No Khandro, not my move, I am not trying to prove any point, you are :-)

[Khandro]

https://carm.org/religion-cause-war

[jomifl]

I think it would be more accurate to say that ideology (including religious ideology)causes wars.

[Khandro]

That has never been in doubt, but secular ideology creates by far the greatest amount, but maybe waterboatman has paddled away and is still no wiser.

[Hypognosis]

@Khandro

//Look to history; //

Yes, let's do that.

//the Mongol hordes,//

Someone recently found an ancient tree, in Mongolia or nearby, which showed weather-related stress (stunted growth) coincident with the medieval warm period. Possibly a reach but someone has already speculated that Mongolia underwent a sustained drought, which would have ruined grazing for a horse-heavy culture. They were nomadic, in any case and I can extrapolate that they drifted westwards, got a difficult reception, discovered they were good at fighting and just never stopped until they reached Poland.

If you can accept "Viking" as a verb, not a noun, then that is basically what they did. Pagans though. (by all means fact-check me on that)

// the USSR, //

Mostly Joe Stalin but the stuffed shirts who did the deeds must have developed a taste for it as they carried on shooting inconvenient people for decades after he keeled over.

// WWII, //

The Holocaust must have had *something* to do with centuries of hatred between Christians and Jews. Hitler may have got his ideas from the Russian pogroms, in "The Pale of Settlement", circa 1860s (??)

"Hitler was Catholic" is a worn out old chesnut. Let's try to say something new,
like "Germany, Austria and the Sudetenland were Protestant/Lutheran and all cheered and saluted when Hitler preached hatred against Jews".
(Although known outspoken types existed, they tended to get 'spirited away', in the night and never seen again).

//
Pol Pot,
//

The psychopaths' psychopath. Intellectuals - heck, anyone who wore glasses, really - were top of his hit list. Open admission that he was far from the smartest person in his own country.

//Maoist China, //

Hmm, I need to read more. Generally, if all we get to see is the old propoganda posters then we know it was a closed-door regime and nobody has a clue what really went on.

//
and more,
//

Meh, you've given us enough to work with, for the moment.

// all secular //

All despotic regimes, run by psychopaths, with no moral compass. Living for the moment; doing whatever they pleased and * everyone else.

Past performance does not guarantee future results. If our brush is painting too widely, do - please - tell us how to be more specific about who we accuse, of what.

[Peter Pedant]

// In fact, during World War II, Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned, tortured, and even worse because they would not compromise their neutrality.//

erm I think you should point out that this was in Nazi germany goodlife

[Hypognosis]

@Khandro

After all that, I forgot to make my central point which was that the examples you quote are all neatly constrained date ranges in history with contemoprary records made of death tolls (give or take the difficulties of writing while having to flee the horde). In the cases of the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, Mao's famines, Pol Pot's mass killings, it was millions in a very short timespan. We naturally assess these as very severe incidences.

What atheist ABers may be alluding to is the steady drip of religion-based violence *throughout history*.

If Christianity maintained an average 3,000 intolerance-related killings per year then, after 2,000 years, they've racked up as many victims as the Holocaust.

That's moral relativism for you.

[benhilton]

being interested or respecting another religion doesn't mean that you envy it

[Khandro]

Hypo; What drivel! absolutely nothing you say contradicts my assertion 11:51.

Mongols, and "weather related trees" - are you nuts?
The USSR, - "stuffed shirts "? - are you crazy?
WWII, Do you think that was predicated on hatred of Jews? - are you insane?
Pol Pot, What !!!?
Mao, " I need to read more."

I think you really do.

[naomi24]

benhilton. //I'm a Catholic but I have great respect for the JW's //

Why? As far as they're concerned you're doomed along with the rest of us.