1
   

Which Religion is the one truly most Murderous?

 
 
smog
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 03:12 am
LionTamerX wrote:
Which part of "Thou shalt not kill." is so difficult to understand ?

A lot of Biblical scholars say that, while you should "turn the other cheek" and all that jazz when it applies to yourself, it is okay to fight and even kill if you are protecting your family or other individuals close to you. I suppose the same could go for one's countrymen. Not saying I believe that's the right way to behave, though.

And some of the most murderous people ever, most namely Stalin, had no religion at all to speak of, but I guess that's not entirely relevant to the topic at hand. Although, using Terry's ideas, I suppose it could be...
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 03:15 am
Terry wrote:
Presumably most of the killing done by Christians has been ordered or sanctioned by God, therefore it is not unlawful.



well osama also used to recieve e-mails from the maker sanctioning the WTC.....
0 Replies
 
Terry
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 03:23 am
LionTamerX wrote:
Which part of "Thou shalt not kill." is so difficult to understand ?

God never said "thou shalt not kill." The commandment is "thou shalt not murder," and after dictating the commandments to Moses, God ordered the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman and child occupying the lands he intended them to have. In addition to the 10 Cs, God gave Moses a lot of other laws with a mandatory death penalty for witches, false prophets, relatives who entice you to worship other gods, disobedient children, cursing your parents, sexual misconduct, doing work on the Sabbath, blasphemy, etc.

Which part of the Bible did you not understand, the part where God orders His people to put miscreants to death and massacre their neighbors, or the part where God drowns almost everyone on earth, slaughters first-borns, inflicts plagues, fire and brimstone and kills in myriad other ways, or the part where God required his own son to be killed as a sacrifice to himself to keep himself from sending us to the hell he designed for us as a punishment for having the sins he inflicted on us by inheritance from Adam and Eve, whom he set up for failure in the first place?
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 03:29 am
Terry wrote:
LionTamerX wrote:
Which part of "Thou shalt not kill." is so difficult to understand ?

God ordered the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman and child occupying the lands he intended them to have. In addition to the 10 Cs, God gave Moses a lot of other laws with a mandatory death penalty for witches, false prophets, relatives who entice you to worship other gods, disobedient children, cursing your parents, sexual misconduct, doing work on the Sabbath, blasphemy, etc.

Which part of the Bible did you not understand, the part where God orders His people to put miscreants to death and massacre their neighbors, or the part where God drowns almost everyone on earth, slaughters first-borns, inflicts plagues, fire and brimstone and kills in myriad other ways, or the part where God required his own son to be killed as a sacrifice to himself to keep himself from sending us to the hell he designed for us as a punishment for having the sins he inflicted on us by inheritance from Adam and Eve, whom he set up for failure in the first place?


all this comes from a religion ??????????

i need a pick me up.
0 Replies
 
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 08:49 am
Terry wrote:
Well, I've got to disagree with you on this one, Setanta, but only because of the wording of the question.

Murder is defined as unlawful killing. Presumably most of the killing done by Christians has been ordered or sanctioned by God, therefore it is not unlawful.


Good point, Boss . . . The Lord of Hosts surely does not err in ordering the slaughter of the innocents . . .
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 09:17 am
Is the question "which religion has killed the most people" or is it "which religion has killed the most people of other religions"?

Also, are you referring to specific religious killings, or just that the killer was of a particular religion. For example, the crusades were considered holy wars, whereas the BTK guy was a christian who just killed.

I think these make big differences in forming an answer to this thread.
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 09:30 am
which religion has killed other religions - for religious reasons. (for eg, in the 2nd world war, japan did not attack usa or usa did not nuke japan for religious reasons - but germans killed jews because of intolerance against the jewish religion - and even allowed those jews who agreed - under the gun - to sign a paper declaring themselves "aryan" go free.)
0 Replies
 
Moishe3rd
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 09:48 am
Oh hell, why not...
Muslims.
Islamic fascist Death Cultists.
Muslims. Muslims. Muslims.
They want to kill you, and your little dog too!
0 Replies
 
MinDSaY
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:22 am
I'm going to say Hinduism. If you are a women and a Hindu then I think you would agree. Has anyone heard the word Sati? Its when a women has to burn herself alive along with her dead husband...
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:30 am
yeah Sad

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati#The_Social_Practice
0 Replies
 
ebrown p
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:34 am
From what I have read, the Hindu caste system was (is?) pretty brutal. Killing the lowest castes was not only common, it was acceptable.

I read that this cruel system is still a powerful influence in Indian culture. However, this information was from a Christian group, and I take such things with a grain of salt.

Is barbarism toward people in your own society more barbaric, or less than kiilling people because of their religion.
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:42 am
Quote:
The Caste System

by Prof. Koenraad Elst


In an inter-faith debate, most Hindus can easily be put on the defensive with a single word-caste. Any anti-Hindu polemist can be counted on to allege that "the typically Hindu caste system is the most cruel apartheid, imposed by the barbaric white Aryan invaders on the gentle dark-skinned natives." Here's a more balanced and historical account of this controversial institution.

Merits of the Caste System

The caste system is often portrayed as the ultimate horror. Inborn inequality is indeed unacceptable to us moderns, but this does not preclude that the system has also had its merits.
Caste is perceived as an "exclusion-from," but first of all it is a form of "belonging-to," a natural structure of solidarity. For this reason, Christian and Muslim missionaries found it very difficult to lure Hindus away from their communities. Sometimes castes were collectively converted to Islam, and Pope Gregory XV (1621-23) decreed that the missionaries could tolerate caste distinction among Christian converts; but by and large, caste remained an effective hurdle to the destruction of Hinduism through conversion. That is why the missionaries started attacking the institution of caste and in particular the brahmin caste. This propaganda has bloomed into a full-fledged anti-brahminism, the Indian equivalent of anti-Semitism.

Every caste had a large measure of autonomy, with its own judiciary, duties and privileges, and often its own temples. Inter-caste affairs were settled at the village council by consensus; even the lowest caste had veto power. This autonomy of intermediate levels of society is the antithesis of the totalitarian society in which the individual stands helpless before the all-powerful state. This decentralized structure of civil society and of the Hindu religious commonwealth has been crucial to the survival of Hinduism under Muslim rule. Whereas Buddhism was swept away as soon as its monasteries were destroyed, Hinduism retreated into its caste structure and weathered the storm.

Caste also provided a framework for integrating immigrant communities: Jews, Zoroastrians and Syrian Christians. They were not only tolerated, but assisted in efforts to preserve their distinctive traditions.

Typically Hindu?

It is routinely claimed that caste is a uniquely Hindu institution. Yet, counter examples are not hard to come by. In Europe and elsewhere, there was (or still is) a hierarchical distinction between noblemen and commoners, with nobility only marrying nobility. Many tribal societies punished the breach of endogamy rules with death.

Coming to the Indian tribes, we find Christian missionaries claiming that "tribals are not Hindus because they do not observe caste." In reality, missionary literature itself is rife with testimonies of caste practices among tribals. A spectacular example is what the missions call "the Mistake:" the attempt, in 1891, to make tribal converts in Chhotanagpur inter-dine with converts from other tribes. It was a disaster for the mission. Most tribals renounced Christianity because they chose to preserve the taboo on inter-dining. As strongly as the haughtiest brahmin, they refused to mix what God hath separated.

Endogamy and exogamy are observed by tribal societies the world over. The question is therefore not why Hindu society invented this system, but how it could preserve these tribal identities even after outgrowing the tribal stage of civilization. The answer lies largely in the expanding Vedic culture's intrinsically respectful and conservative spirit, which ensured that each tribe could preserve its customs and traditions, including its defining custom of tribal endogamy.

Description and History

The Portuguese colonizers applied the term caste, "lineage, breed," to two different Hindu institutions: jati and varna. The effective unit of the caste system is the jati, birth-unit, an endogamous group into which you are born, and within which you marry. In principle, you can only dine with fellow members, but the pressures of modern life have eroded this rule. The several thousands of jatis are subdivided in exogamous clans, gotra. This double division dates back to tribal society.

By contrast, varna is the typical functional division of an advanced society-the Indus/Saraswati civilization, 3rd millennium, bce. The youngest part of the Rg-Veda describes four classes: learned brahmins born from Brahma's mouth, martial kshatriya-born from his arms; vaishya entrepreneurs born from His hips and shudra workers born from His feet. Everyone is a shudra by birth. Boys become dwija, twice-born, or member of one of the three upper varnas upon receiving the sacred thread in the upanayana ceremony.

The varna system expanded from the Saraswati-Yamuna area and got firmly established in the whole of Aryavarta (Kashmir to Vidarbha, Sindh to Bihar). It counted as a sign of superior culture setting the arya, civilized, heartland apart from the surrounding mleccha, barbaric, lands. In Bengal and the South, the system was reduced to a distinction between brahmins and shudras. Varna is a ritual category and does not fully correspond to effective social or economic status. Thus, half of the princely rulers in British India were shudras and a few were brahmins, though it is the kshatriya function par excellence. Many shudras are rich, many brahmins impoverished.

The Mahabharata defines the varna qualities thus: "He in whom you find truthfulness, generosity, absence of hatred, modesty, goodness and self-restraint, is a brahmana. He who fulfills the duties of a knight, studies the scriptures, concentrates on acquisition and distribution of riches, is a kshatriya. He who loves cattle-breeding, agriculture and money, is honest and well-versed in scripture, is a vaishya. He who eats anything, practises any profession, ignores purity rules, and takes no interest in scriptures and rules of life, is a shudra." The higher the varna, the more rules of self-discipline are to be observed. Hence, a jati could collectively improve its status by adopting more demanding rules of conduct, e.g. vegetarianism.

A person's second name usually indicates his jati or gotra. Further, one can use the following varna titles: Sharma (shelter, or joy) indicates the brahmin, Varma (armour) the kshatriya, Gupta (protected) the vaishya and Das (servant) the shudra. In a single family, one person may call himself Gupta (varna), another Agrawal (jati), yet another Garg (gotra). A monk, upon renouncing the world, sheds his name along with his caste identity.

Untouchability

Below the caste hierarchy are the untouchables, or harijan (literally "God's people"), dalits ("oppressed"), paraiah (one such caste in South India), or scheduled castes. They make up about 16% of the Indian population, as many as the upper castes combined.

Untouchability originates in the belief that evil spirits surround dead and dying substances. People who work with corpses, body excretions or animal skins had an aura of danger and impurity, so they were kept away from mainstream society and from sacred learning and ritual. This often took grotesque forms: thus, an untouchable had to announce his polluting proximity with a rattle, like a leper.

Untouchability is unknown in the Vedas, and therefore repudiated by neo-Vedic reformers like Dayanand Saraswati, Narayan Guru, Gandhiji and Savarkar. In 1967, Dr. Ambedkar, a dalit by birth and fierce critic of social injustice in Hinduism and Islam, led a mass conversion to Buddhism, partly on the (unhistorical) assumption that Buddhism had been an anti-caste movement. The 1950 constitution outlawed untouchability and sanctioned positive discrimination programs for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Lately, the Vishva Hindu Parishad has managed to get even the most traditionalist religious leaders on the anti-untouchability platform, so that they invite harijans to Vedic schools and train them as priests. In the villages, however, pestering of dalits is still a regular phenomenon, occasioned less by ritual purity issues than by land and labor disputes. However, the dalits' increasing political clout is accelerating the elimination of untouchability.

Caste Conversion

In the Mahabharata, Yuddhishthira affirms that varna is defined by the qualities of head and heart, not by one's birth. Krishna teaches that varna is defined by one's activity (karma) and quality (guna). Till today, it is an unfinished debate to what extent one's "quality" is determined by heredity or by environmental influence. And so, while the hereditary view has been predominant for long, the non-hereditary conception of varna has always been around as well, as is clear from the practice of varna conversion. The most famous example is the 17th-century freedom fighter Shivaji, a shudra who was accorded kshatriya status to match his military achievements. The geographical spread of Vedic tradition was achieved through large-scale initiation of local elites into the varna order. From 1875 onwards, the Arya Samaj has systematically administered the "purification ritual" (shuddhi) to Muslim and Christian converts and to low-caste Hindus, making the dwija. Conversely, the present policy of positive discrimination has made upper-caste people seek acceptance into the favored Scheduled Castes.

Veer Savarkar, the ideologue of Hindu nationalism, advocated intermarriage to unify the Hindu nation even at the biological level. Most contemporary Hindus, though now generally opposed to caste inequality, continue to marry within their respective jati because they see no reason for their dissolution.

Racial Theory of Caste

Nineteenth-century Westerners projected the colonial situation and the newest race theories on the caste system: the upper castes were white invaders lording it over the black natives. This outdated view is still repeated ad-nauseam by anti-Hindu authors: now that "idolatry" has lost its force as a term of abuse, "racism" is a welcome innovation to demonize Hinduism. In reality, India is the region where all skin color types met and mingled, and you will find many brahmins as black as Nelson Mandela. Ancient "Aryan" heroes like Rama, Krishna, Draupadi, Ravana (a brahmin) and a number of Vedic seers were explicitly described as being dark-skinned.

But doesn't varna mean "skin color?" The effective meaning of varna is "splendor, color," and hence "distinctive quality" or "one segment in a spectrum." The four functional classes constitute the "colors" in the spectrum of society. Symbolic colors are allotted to the varna on the basis of the cosmological scheme of "three qualities" (triguna): white is sattva (truthful), the quality typifying the brahmin; red is rajas (energetic), for the kshatriya; black is tamas (inert, solid), for the shudra; yellow is allotted to the vaishya, who is defined by a mixture of qualities.

Finally, caste society has been the most stable society in history. Indian communists used to sneer that "India has never even had a revolution." Actually, that is no mean achievement.


.
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:44 am
this continued sidelining one's own people, is one of the most spineless, barbaric and conceited acts in history.
0 Replies
 
ebrown p
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:47 am
The Hindu violent conflict with Muslims (in Ayodya and in Gujerrat) is also not unique. Hindu extremists seem to be attacking Christian Churches as well.

Quote:



In a renewed round of violence, Hindu extremists in India assaulted priests and nuns and ransacked Christian churches and schools. A growing atmosphere of religious intolerance in India is threatening to further damage relations between Hindu moderates and Christians.

Militant Hindu organizations such as the Rashtiriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the Sangh Parivar (SP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) receive support from members of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), thus fueling a campaign against religious minorities in India.

In November, about 400 VHP activists desecrated and forcibly took over a church belonging to the Evangelical Church of India in the Surat district, Gujarat state. They removed the church's cross from the altar, replacing it with Hindu idols. They also hoisted a saffron flag, symbolizing that the church had become a place of Hindu worship.

A five-member fact-finding team headed by John Dayal, secretary general of the All-India Christian Council (AICC), alleged that Hindu fundamentalist organizations were trying to convert the church into a temple. The matter, now a national controversy, is pending in court.

In the incident, about 80 Christian families, some 200 tribal Christians in all, were driven out of the village and took refuge in a nearby forest. VHP activists have warned that the Christians will be allowed back only if they embrace Hinduism.


Source Christianity Today
0 Replies
 
Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:50 am
Muslim "Honour Killings" are said to be responsible for 5000 or more women every year.
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 10:52 am
i summed up ayodhya and gujrat in the "church hating jew" thread.


the "church attacks" are yet to be featured in any news paper, national news, bbc, cnn, fox, time asia etc.


you can continue to believe christianity today though.
edit - i hope they take care to mention this as well - http://www.apol.net/dightonrock/inquisition_goa.htm
0 Replies
 
ebrown p
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 11:07 am
Intrepid wrote:
Muslim "Honour Killings" are said to be responsible for 5000 or more women every year.


Can you provide a link to this. The only link I found was to a National Geographic Article which stated that

National Geographic wrote:

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.


National Geographic source

A personal account of Hindu violence toward women is here.

Reuters wrote:

BOMBAY, July 5 (Reuters) - Squatting on the floor of a women's shelter, 33-year-old Swati lifts her blue cotton sari to reveal blackish scars on her disfigured feet.

"They held me down and poured kerosene over me and then they lit a wooden stick," she says, before adding that she counts herself lucky. "Only my feet and legs are burned."

Swati suffered nine years of terror and beatings at the hands of her husband and in-laws for not paying an ample enough dowry, before they eventually tried to kill her by burning her alive.

Though she can no longer walk properly, Swati was rescued from her ordeal. Millions of other Indian women, however, remain terrorised by their families in their own homes, activists say.


source

I mean no disrespect to the millions of fine people who practice the Hindu religion peacefully.

I am just pointing out, my dear Brahmin, that you are in no position to point out the less pretty parts of someone elses religion.
0 Replies
 
Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 11:17 am
ebrown_p wrote:
Intrepid wrote:
Muslim "Honour Killings" are said to be responsible for 5000 or more women every year.


Can you provide a link to this. The only link I found was to a National Geographic Article which stated that


National Geographic wrote:

In India, for example, more than 5,000 brides die annually because their dowries are considered insufficient, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Crimes of passion, which are treated extremely leniently in Latin America, are the same thing with a different name, some rights advocates say.


There are several. Here is one
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 11:21 am
hindu society is handle-less.

we have no authoriy to report to.


thus there are many primitive aspects that are still held on to. none of them, in fact no one single practice/belief is/are "central" to the hindu way of life (which is what it is, not a religion), let alone mentioned in the hindu equivalent of "the book(s)".


most lunatic aspects have been stopped. the aforemantioned sati for example. largely due to Ram Mohan Roy (google for more about this guy).


dowry still remains - primarily in the bihar_uttar pradesh_Madhya pradesh_rajasthan belt, which is the most backward of india, (the lousianas of india, if that explains better).


it will go in time too - 12-15 years at most.
0 Replies
 
brahmin
 
  1  
Reply Wed 6 Jul, 2005 11:26 am
ebrown_p wrote:


I am just pointing out, my dear Brahmin, that you are in no position to point out the less pretty parts of someone elses religion.



i dont judge ANY religion and never attempted to point out the "less pretty" or "more pretty" part of any.


i did however point out the Murderous/ Violently intolerant parts of all religions (or people who practise that religion) i knew of.


i also accepted (admitted), without a word, the "less pretty" parts of hinduism (though way of life of hindu soceity is the correct defination, since for example, sati and caste abuse find no mention in our "books" )


caste system is indefensible and needs to be dismantled asap. a lot has been done, but a lot more needs to be done too.


a codification of society, based on their social function, that putrefied and got abused for over 1500 years, cant be made amends for or uprooted overnight. we did a lot in 50 odd years.. in 30 more it should be gone.
0 Replies
 
 

Related Topics

700 Inconsistencies in the Bible - Discussion by onevoice
Why do we deliberately fool ourselves? - Discussion by coincidence
Spirituality - Question by Miller
Oneness vs. Trinity - Discussion by Arella Mae
give you chills - Discussion by Bartikus
Evidence for Evolution! - Discussion by Bartikus
Evidence of God! - Discussion by Bartikus
One World Order?! - Discussion by Bartikus
God loves us all....!? - Discussion by Bartikus
The Preambles to Our States - Discussion by Charli
 
Copyright © 2024 MadLab, LLC :: Terms of Service :: Privacy Policy :: Page generated in 0.79 seconds on 12/23/2024 at 01:33:31