There are a lot of people on this thread coming out with the old "it's all religion's fault" argument that I have been hearing since I was a teenager.
Now I'm not religious. I was brought up as a Catholic, and my elderly mother is still very much a practicing Catholic. So I know all about all of the classic difficulties that being brought up as a Catholic brings with it. My mother steadfastly believes that on judgment day we will all be required to grovel at God's feet or risk being damned.
Now that is not the sort of God I want to believe in!
Nevertheless, I do not accept the argument that "religion" is the problem.
If you're an atheist you will not believe in God. So then who creates religion?
Well - who creates "religion"?
So, there's your answer folks - ultimately the "problem" is human nature.
1. No suggestion that there weren't wars, cruelty or colonisation - just that they were not justified in terms of monotheistic religious tenets.
2. Not suggesting that religion was the cause - just that it offered itself as a sophistry to justify and enable the actions. To take some extreme examples, it would have been impossible, to conduct the crusades, inquisition, mission-based colonisation/social destruction etc. without their religious motivation.
I think a secular US without the current associations with christianity that permeate its politics/establishment on both sides of the house and the more extreme forms of evangelical christian doctrine used to justify a large part of Republican greed and bigotry would probably be pretty different.
UK is largely secular, yes, but its establishment has always, and still does, use the church as a significant means of justification of its aggression. Religious symbolism and propaganda are intertwined into most of its institutional ceremony and persuasion and religion is certainly a primary component of its institutional and social bigotry.
People are pretty horrible little animals anyway and I wouldn't suggest that the removal of religion would make them nicer - it would just have remove what has certainly been a motive force in much conflict and its absence would also have removed the opportunity for formal, establishment-level substitution of "belief" / "faith" for thought.
It's looking more and more like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are NOT fake. Are NOT a forgery, but are actually a BLUEPRINT. These people and unfortunately many "Christians" are convinced they are God's chosen even though the majority of Jews today have no Semitic blood whatsoever running in their veins. They are decedents of the Khazarian tribes of Russia and fit Revelation 3 Vs 9 to a TEE. This kind of insanity you write about proves who THEIR father is. From the last paragraph of Protocol #10...seem familiar?
"...But you yourselves perfectly well know that to produce the possibility of the expression of such wishes by all the nations it is indispensable to trouble in all countries the people's relationship with their governments so as to utterly exhaust humanity with dissension, hatred, struggle, envy and even by the use of torture, by starvation, BY THE INNOCULATION OF DISEASES, by want, so that the Goyim see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else." I left the all capital letters as they are in the original text. I am NOT anti-Semitic for bringing this to anyone's attention. I believe that all races, creeds and religion adherents have good people in them BUT I also believe that they all also have PSYCHOPATHIC CONTROL FREAK PARASITES within them. Our job is to flush them out and shun them.
Thoroughly despairing; I think the answer is to hold a People's Court , so to say. Thr like-minded and the informed must gather at a meeting hall and expose the Israeli killing. Some in the media will publicize it.
Israel has forfeited its right to exist. Israel's ongoing genocide shows Israel's true colors. The criminal Netanyahu and his top advisors are trying to persuade the Congo and other nations to take in the displaced Palestinians. A better solution: US, UK, Canada, Australia and other enablers of the Zionist slaughter should each accept 1 to 1.5 million Israeli Jews. They should ALL leave and give the land back to the Palestinians---the land which was stolen from them by the Zionists' systematic campaign in 1947-48 of bulldozing or obliterating 570 Palestinian villages, destroying Palestinian towns, neighborhoods, cities, conducting at least 50 massacres shooting Palestinians in cold blood, and forcing 800,000+ Palestinians to flee into what is now Gaza and West Bank. At the time, the Jews were around 10% of the population. They felt they needed to get rid of the Palestinians in order to create a Zionist nation-state, so they carried out a systematic terror campaign---and the horror we are witnessing today is Act 2. See Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
It all comes around to the convoluted view that so many "Christians" have of IsraeLIE. They seriously believe that they are God's chosen and can do no wrong. Well they need to also read Revelation where it is stated...Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Wake up those of you who are "Christian" ZIONISTS!!
Since Rabbi Mirvis, lacks good moral and ethical standards, is an ideologue and politician rather than a religious leader, and has made blasphemous statements in support of genocide, I as a Jew excommunicate him from the Jewish religion.
On a more positive note , many rabbis in the United States have spoken out and protested against the atrocites being committed by Israel in Gaza. My guess is most rabbis in the US
like the Chief Rabbi in Great Britain either support or are afraid to speak out against Israel. At least we Jews in the US do not have a chief rabbi although Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO Of the Anti Defamation League(ADL) maybe the Jewish unofficial spokesperson/rabbi?.
I really don’t know what to say. I think I am angry. Really angry. I think the whole thing is obscene. It’s astonishing. I just can’t get my head around it. I have been supporting the Palestine stance since I read of it over 40 years ago when I was 20. I just don’t understand how this is continuing. I really don’t get it. I know every angle but still don’t understand. Is it really just greed? Thievery and murdered? Is it really religious? I’m baffled how this can be happening and totally confused as to why the rest of the world are allowing it. Why entire world’s public is not screaming out about this. Here in Britain the trade unions are silent. There should be calls for a general strike to force the government to change direction on all the issue.
Did you just take the imams in London's plea to kill the Jews and switch it around?
If the Israeli soldiers are heroes, then logically so are the SS who ran the camps . The reasoning is the same. Just change the names.
There are a lot of people on this thread coming out with the old "it's all religion's fault" argument that I have been hearing since I was a teenager.
Now I'm not religious. I was brought up as a Catholic, and my elderly mother is still very much a practicing Catholic. So I know all about all of the classic difficulties that being brought up as a Catholic brings with it. My mother steadfastly believes that on judgment day we will all be required to grovel at God's feet or risk being damned.
Now that is not the sort of God I want to believe in!
Nevertheless, I do not accept the argument that "religion" is the problem.
If you're an atheist you will not believe in God. So then who creates religion?
Well - who creates "religion"?
So, there's your answer folks - ultimately the "problem" is human nature.
1. No suggestion that there weren't wars, cruelty or colonisation - just that they were not justified in terms of monotheistic religious tenets.
2. Not suggesting that religion was the cause - just that it offered itself as a sophistry to justify and enable the actions. To take some extreme examples, it would have been impossible, to conduct the crusades, inquisition, mission-based colonisation/social destruction etc. without their religious motivation.
I think a secular US without the current associations with christianity that permeate its politics/establishment on both sides of the house and the more extreme forms of evangelical christian doctrine used to justify a large part of Republican greed and bigotry would probably be pretty different.
UK is largely secular, yes, but its establishment has always, and still does, use the church as a significant means of justification of its aggression. Religious symbolism and propaganda are intertwined into most of its institutional ceremony and persuasion and religion is certainly a primary component of its institutional and social bigotry.
People are pretty horrible little animals anyway and I wouldn't suggest that the removal of religion would make them nicer - it would just have remove what has certainly been a motive force in much conflict and its absence would also have removed the opportunity for formal, establishment-level substitution of "belief" / "faith" for thought.
Thank you, Mr. Cook.
Wonderfully argued and presented.
In solidarity,
Alan
For some reason I’m not able to get into this website I’ve been a member for almost a year
It's looking more and more like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are NOT fake. Are NOT a forgery, but are actually a BLUEPRINT. These people and unfortunately many "Christians" are convinced they are God's chosen even though the majority of Jews today have no Semitic blood whatsoever running in their veins. They are decedents of the Khazarian tribes of Russia and fit Revelation 3 Vs 9 to a TEE. This kind of insanity you write about proves who THEIR father is. From the last paragraph of Protocol #10...seem familiar?
"...But you yourselves perfectly well know that to produce the possibility of the expression of such wishes by all the nations it is indispensable to trouble in all countries the people's relationship with their governments so as to utterly exhaust humanity with dissension, hatred, struggle, envy and even by the use of torture, by starvation, BY THE INNOCULATION OF DISEASES, by want, so that the Goyim see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else." I left the all capital letters as they are in the original text. I am NOT anti-Semitic for bringing this to anyone's attention. I believe that all races, creeds and religion adherents have good people in them BUT I also believe that they all also have PSYCHOPATHIC CONTROL FREAK PARASITES within them. Our job is to flush them out and shun them.
Thoroughly despairing; I think the answer is to hold a People's Court , so to say. Thr like-minded and the informed must gather at a meeting hall and expose the Israeli killing. Some in the media will publicize it.
The chief Rabbi is an absolute disgrace. He should be dragged off the rostrum and placed in handcuffs.
Finally an explanation for the character assassination of Jeremy Corbin. This explains MUCH!
Israel has forfeited its right to exist. Israel's ongoing genocide shows Israel's true colors. The criminal Netanyahu and his top advisors are trying to persuade the Congo and other nations to take in the displaced Palestinians. A better solution: US, UK, Canada, Australia and other enablers of the Zionist slaughter should each accept 1 to 1.5 million Israeli Jews. They should ALL leave and give the land back to the Palestinians---the land which was stolen from them by the Zionists' systematic campaign in 1947-48 of bulldozing or obliterating 570 Palestinian villages, destroying Palestinian towns, neighborhoods, cities, conducting at least 50 massacres shooting Palestinians in cold blood, and forcing 800,000+ Palestinians to flee into what is now Gaza and West Bank. At the time, the Jews were around 10% of the population. They felt they needed to get rid of the Palestinians in order to create a Zionist nation-state, so they carried out a systematic terror campaign---and the horror we are witnessing today is Act 2. See Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
It all comes around to the convoluted view that so many "Christians" have of IsraeLIE. They seriously believe that they are God's chosen and can do no wrong. Well they need to also read Revelation where it is stated...Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Wake up those of you who are "Christian" ZIONISTS!!
What took him so long? Has had to catch up to call the Imams calling for the death of all Jews. Has the Pope given his blessings to this unholy mess.
The Triumverant Christianity, Islam, Judaism. Any wonder why the world is in this situation it finds itself in.
Since Rabbi Mirvis, lacks good moral and ethical standards, is an ideologue and politician rather than a religious leader, and has made blasphemous statements in support of genocide, I as a Jew excommunicate him from the Jewish religion.
On a more positive note , many rabbis in the United States have spoken out and protested against the atrocites being committed by Israel in Gaza. My guess is most rabbis in the US
like the Chief Rabbi in Great Britain either support or are afraid to speak out against Israel. At least we Jews in the US do not have a chief rabbi although Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO Of the Anti Defamation League(ADL) maybe the Jewish unofficial spokesperson/rabbi?.
I really don’t know what to say. I think I am angry. Really angry. I think the whole thing is obscene. It’s astonishing. I just can’t get my head around it. I have been supporting the Palestine stance since I read of it over 40 years ago when I was 20. I just don’t understand how this is continuing. I really don’t get it. I know every angle but still don’t understand. Is it really just greed? Thievery and murdered? Is it really religious? I’m baffled how this can be happening and totally confused as to why the rest of the world are allowing it. Why entire world’s public is not screaming out about this. Here in Britain the trade unions are silent. There should be calls for a general strike to force the government to change direction on all the issue.