Dawkins On South Park

GWolf

From what I've learned from watching people, if they will kill for one reason, they'll kill for another.

aidan24326

Dawkins does go a bit ott in suggesting (almost) that religion is the cause of all wars. He even mentions Northern Ireland although this has never really been about religion. But it (religion) is and has been one of the major factors. Still, regardless of war, there are other good reasons to want to do away with something that promotes so many falsehoods.

As for the South Park episode, watched it the other night on youtube. Pretty good alright. I'm sure Dawkins would be thrilled by that scene with himself and 'mrs' garrison in the bedroom

robindch

> He even mentions Northern Ireland although this has never really
> been about religion.

I disagree. I believe that religion has been the principal marker used by political leaders to convince their followers to perpetuate the conflict. While I believe that the poitical aspirations for unity with mainland UK, or with southern Ireland are secondary and generally derive from notions of religious affiliation anyway.

Put it another way, if you didn't have religions handing out baubles to march up and down the road with, I think it would be much harder to persuade people to hate each other since they'd have a hard time telling each other apart.

Jane Elliott's http://www.janeelliott.com/ 'Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes' exercises are worth checking out (perhaps on youtube?), to see how depressingly powerful it's possible for ridiculously simple tribal markers to be.

robindch

robindch wrote:

> He even mentions Northern Ireland although this has never really
> been about religion.

I disagree. I believe that religion has been the principal marker used by political leaders to convince their followers to perpetuate the conflict. While I believe that the poitical aspirations for unity with mainland UK, or with southern Ireland are secondary and generally derive from notions of religious affiliation anyway.

Put it another way, if you didn't have religions handing out baubles to march up and down the road with, I think it would be much harder to persuade people to hate each other since they'd have a hard time telling each other apart.

Jane Elliott's http://www.janeelliott.com/ 'Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes' exercises are worth checking out (perhaps on youtube?), to see how depressingly powerful it's possible for ridiculously simple tribal markers to be.

I'm not sure half them know what transubstantiation means though...
and that exercise I've heard of before, it's very interesting.

aidan24326

robindch wrote:

> He even mentions Northern Ireland although this has never really
> been about religion.

I disagree. I believe that religion has been the principal marker used by political leaders to convince their followers to perpetuate the conflict. While I believe that the poitical aspirations for unity with mainland UK, or with southern Ireland are secondary and generally derive from notions of religious affiliation anyway.

Put it another way, if you didn't have religions handing out baubles to march up and down the road with, I think it would be much harder to persuade people to hate each other since they'd have a hard time telling each other apart.

I don't entirely agree. Religion is used as a divisive label in the North but I can't see how that conflict was ever really about religion to begin with.
Whether you're catholic or protestant places you neatly on either side of the fence as republican or loyalist, but the issues of disagreement are not religious per se. I'm open to correction though.

Dawkins is most certainly correct in saying that religion is and has been a core issue in many wars and conflicts, with the middle east being an ongoing example, but I just thought he was stretching it a tad with Northern Ireland, which I never really saw as a religious conflict in the way that the whole Israel/Palestine situation clearly is.

Zillah

bluewolf wrote:

I'm not sure half them know what transubstantiation means though...

Doesn't matter if they fully understand their faith or not. They could think Catholicism is about worshipping a giant pineapple and still hate Protestants for their unholy beliefs.

Scofflaw

aidan24326 wrote:

Dawkins is most certainly correct in saying that religion is and has been a core issue in many wars and conflicts, with the middle east being an ongoing example, but I just thought he was stretching it a tad with Northern Ireland, which I never really saw as a religious conflict in the way that the whole Israel/Palestine situation clearly is.

Eh? Are you saying that the Israel/Palestine war is between Judaism and Islam?

Are you not missing out on the rather large fact that the Palestinians were displaced from their land during the creation of the Israeli state by a campaign of intimidation and atrocity?

That the Israeli state is Jewish is really neither here nor there. If it were Christian, or Zoroastrian, or Muslim, the results would be the same - an intruded alien state, created by administrative fiat of the powers, displacing the indigenous population.

Religion traces the boundary of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but is not the cause of it, except in a really convoluted way that traces its routes through European anti-Semitism.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zillah

Zillah wrote:

Doesn't matter if they fully understand their faith or not. They could think Catholicism is about worshipping a giant pineapple and still hate Protestants for their unholy beliefs.

I can't see how that's genuinely about the religion then, only using it as some arbitrary divider...

Dades

Zillah wrote:

Doesn't matter if they fully understand their faith or not. They could think Catholicism is about worshipping a giant pineapple and still hate Protestants for their unholy beliefs.

"They" still hate protestants only its the catch-all grouping for the "English" people occupying the 6 counties (IMO).

Dawkins suggests the news uses terms like "nationalist" and "loyalist" to disguise the fact that it's really about catholicism v protestantism. I just think statement is wrong, and is typical of what annoys me about Dawkins - his overdeveloped "root of all evil" attitude.

Personally I think the terms nationalist and loyalist are far more representative of what the 'conflict' is about.

aidan24326

Scofflaw wrote:

Eh? Are you saying that the Israel/Palestine war is between Judaism and Islam?
Are you not missing out on the rather large fact that the Palestinians were displaced from their land during the creation of the Israeli state by a campaign of intimidation and atrocity
That the Israeli state is Jewish is really neither here nor there. If it were Christian, or Zoroastrian, or Muslim, the results would be the same - an intruded alien state, created by administrative fiat of the powers, displacing the indigenous population.
Religion traces the boundary of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but is not the cause of it, except in a really convoluted way that traces its routes through European anti-Semitism.?

I'm well aware that it is about the displacement of a people from their lands. But why do the Israeli Jews think that land to be their absolute right, rather than just some land that is geo-politically desirable? That's the issue. To me that's what makes it a different ball-game to Northern Ireland. The Zionists in Isreal consider it their god-given and god-promised right to that territory, and they will stop at nothing to ensure they get what is rightfully theirs.
As much of a nutjob as Ian Paisley is, I don't recall him saying (at least publicly) that he wants the catholics off Northern Ireland lands because god promised it to protestants.

Scofflaw

aidan24326 wrote:

I'm well aware that it is about the displacement of a people from their lands. But why do the Israeli Jews think that land to be their absolute right, rather than just some land that is geo-politically desirable? That's the issue. To me that's what makes it a different ball-game to Northern Ireland. The Zionists in Isreal consider it their god-given and god-promised right to that territory, and they will stop at nothing to ensure they get what is rightfully theirs.
As much of a nutjob as Ian Paisley is, I don't recall him saying (at least publicly) that he wants the catholics off Northern Ireland lands because god promised it to protestants.

Ah. I take your point, then. I would probably still argue that nationalism would do the job just as well, but certainly God is invoked as the "giver" of the right to the land, and the religious divide exacerbates the situation. In addition, religion certainly fuels the conflict, not least in the shape of those Christian fundamentalists who support Israel for "Biblical" reasons.

cordially,
Scofflaw

stevejazzx

robindch wrote:

>

Put it another way, if you didn't have religions handing out baubles to march up and down the road with, I think it would be much harder to persuade people to hate each other since they'd have a hard time telling each other apart.

....exactly!

Religon is not just another cause factor, or arbitrary divider, it is the most powerful of these. Once a religous deity becomes utterly scrosnact like for example 'Allah' then any alleged indescretion against this deity brings severe consequences. This punishment that is given to the 'infidel' as a result is usually referenced from some old text and more often than not is usually fatal.
So what sin did the infidel commit?
Well anything really that contravenes age old laws of the religon in question. So many gods, different sets of rules and different punishments, all texts outlining these rules and punishments composed thousands of years ago translated many diifferent ways.
The result?
Confusion, fear, hatred and extreme violence.
It is relatively easy to turn a child into a murderer if you teach him that God expects this of him, that God is watching him judging him, and that God wants him to kill these sinners. Remove God from the equation and it becomes as lot more difficult brainwash people into commiting such extreme acts of violence.

GWolf

That is an incredibly simplistic and coloured opinion

Scofflaw

stevejazzx wrote:

It is relatively easy to turn a child into a murderer if you teach him that God expects this of him, that God is watching him judging him, and that God wants him to kill these sinners. Remove God from the equation and it becomes as lot more difficult brainwash people into commiting such extreme acts of violence.

Again, the KGB managed this quite well without using God. It would be interesting, of course, to see whether they thought it was harder without recourse to religious appeals...I doubt we will ever know.

cordially,
Scofflaw

aidan24326

Scofflaw wrote:

Again, the KGB managed this quite well without using God. It would be interesting, of course, to see whether they thought it was harder without recourse to religious appeals...I doubt we will ever know.

cordially,
Scofflaw

We probably never will. What drives people to do evil is a complex issue and obviously pinning religion as the cause of all of it just doesn't wash. However to be fair to Dawkins he has never said such a thing, and he tends to be misquoted and misrepresented more than most. He explains in his 'God Delusion' book that the title for his tv docu 'The Root Of All Evil' was chosen by the producers, not him, and that he disliked it as a title as he is not suggesting that anything could ever be the root of all evil, as that of course would be a gross over-simplification. I think his real issue with religion is more to do with the fact that he sees it as just plain wrong, a total load of crap (as do I).

But there is undoubtedly a more sinister side to it aswell, and it is intersesting that religion, which on the one hand is supposed to be about love and kindness and forgiveness and all that stuff, should seem to crop up in matters of war and conflict as often as it does. While it may not always be the root cause, it's malevolent influence cannot be denied, and even if it doesn't always start the fire it so often does a very good job of pouring petrol onto it.

EDIT: sp

stevejazzx

GWolf wrote:

That is an incredibly simplistic and coloured opinion

What part do you disagree with?
The point is that religon is currently the most powerful motivating factor behind war and seperation in modern society. There are other massive factors of course, politics coming second, history third along with ecomnomic envoiromnet and modern culture and clash of culture etc, but the point was that without religon you deny this probelm it largest contributing factor. Tearing down the divisions of modern societies requires religon as it main sacrafice.

stevejazzx

Scofflaw wrote:

Again, the KGB managed this quite well without using God. It would be interesting, of course, to see whether they thought it was harder without recourse to religious appeals...I doubt we will ever know.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Yes this is true, but just because it can be done without using God does not mean that using God to achieve this is somehow more acceptable under the perception that it will happen anyway.

Also not a lot of organisations do not have the resources that the KGB would have, sometimes the only device available to these people is religon.

bonkey

stevejazzx wrote:

Remove God from the equation and it becomes as lot more difficult brainwash people into commiting such extreme acts of violence.

Based on what evidence?

Zombrex

I think the point that people seem to miss is that despite the fact that religion is not the only cause of conflict, it is not the only way to control and manipulate people, it is not the only reason for suffering in the world, it is still one of the causes/reasons for these things.

Just because bad things will still take place in the world isn't a reason not to go after religion and point out the bad things that religion causes.

For example while one can't really say that religion is the sole reason that Hamas launches suicide attacks against Israel, it is a pretty strong reason why the actual suicide bomber is prepared to die, since he believes he will live forever in heaven.

Religion provides a system for bad things to happen unquestioned. It isn't the only system, far from it, but it is still a system no the less

Zillah

stevejazzx wrote:

The point is that religon is currently the most powerful motivating factor behind war and seperation in modern society.

No way. Money. Money is by far the largest cause of wars these days.

stevejazzx

bonkey wrote:

Based on what evidence?

Based on how easy it is to do it with God in place as the motivating factor.
Using God as the leverage requires no logical progression just a simple faith based argument which cannot be questioned from the inside.

The easiest way to get someone to carry out an extreme act is
1. Ensure he is brought up wrapped in a certain religon
2. Convine him that his God demands it of him

stevejazzx

Zillah wrote:

No way. Money. Money is by far the largest cause of wars these days.

Money? hmmm, well I agree but in what way exactly?
Money is involved along all the core factors of world dispute

1.religon
2culture > money
3.politics
4.economy

Money has to be associated with one of the above and have some motive to be real cause of war. Like for example you might say that the current conflicyt in Iraq is a

Political and economical driven war (American rebuild contracts, the oil fiasco) , yet it's a result of the *1.September 11 attcks which were arguably religous and cultural based attcks yet which also impacted on the Amercian economy. So at the heart of the Iraq war is a clash of culture, heightened by religous difference and consolidated into the mess it is now by polictal and economical factors i.e Americas attempt to install a democracy and the growing international concern about it's mangement of Iraqi oil.

As the war has gone on the religous and cultural tensions have worsened more than any other factor. Amercians are hated seen as captialists morally corrupt and not devoutly religous. While from the Iraqi point of view seeing as their country is being devasted dialy they are reacting with more and more extreme violence in the name of Allah, not money or politics. Perhaps you might say that it is money and politics which funds this overall activity but you only resolve to religon as the motivating factor as to why this particular money and these politics are needed.


*1.According to Bush administration the reason for Iraq war was the disarming of Weapons of Mass destructions and the removal of Sadaam Hussain as Leader of Iraq. Although it is widely believed that there are many other reasons such as Gulf War 1, September 11 attacks, Oil, American middle eastern policy.