Which Religion is the one truly most Murderous?

Setanta, if we assume that all groups of people have about the same innate tendency for violence, the religion that does the least to restrain it (whether through prohibitions or punishment) would have the most murderous members. Christianity is based on a book that allows capital punishment, slavery, war, genocide, and subjugation of women, and the most atrocious acts can be forgiven provided that you accept Jesus as the son of God.

I have not read the Qu'ran sufficiently to judge its effectiveness in restraining murder, but Islam as practiced in the Middle East does not have a good track record for non-violence.

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By and large, from an historical perspective, Muslims have a pretty good record of non-violence within their communities and among their communities. The turmoil in which the Muslim world has found itself has always been largely a product of the clash of cultures, or the imposition of a new tribal authority from above--examples would be in the Mogul Empire in India, vying against a well-established culture; and the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, who constantly fought among themselves for dominance.

Many of the abuses in the Muslim world arise from the values of tribalism superimposed upon the religious practice. There is no central authority in Islam, which, unlike Christianity, did not go down the road to priests and temples. Within a Muslim community, moral authority rests with the ulama, the "righteous men" of the community. But an alim can be just as tribal as the next guy, and if that includes female infanticide, then Islam would take the rap. Additionally, Mohammed was an illiterate man who seems often to have taken points of view convenient to his own gratification, such as taking multiple wives. Even if one accepts prima facia that the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, as is claimed for the Bible, it is inescapable that it was produced by a single man, who perforce dictated it to a literate man, and the potential for flawed "wisdom" is as great as that which obtains in the tribal maunderings of the old testament. Nevertheless, when undisturbed by outside influences, Muslim communities are largely non-violent. However, no community on this planet lives in a vacuum, and Islam, as with any other established religion, has fragmented into many sects, some of a quite extremist point of view.

Within the Christian world, the advent of Saul of Tarsus, the so-called St. Paul, resulted in the imposition of priest and temple upon the previously obscure sect. The Roman world was extremely tolerant of religious diversity. The case cannot reasonably be made that Christians were routinely persecuted in their early years, and the contentions to that effect come exclusively from Christian "historians" with a stake in portraying the early church fathers as martyrs to their faith. They were initially a despised sect, and were occassionally (but very rately) "scapegoated." But with a priestly caste in place, upon their assumption of the status of established church, it has always been a simple matter to get authorization for any sort of despicable act. Anselm, who was raised in the court of Charlemagne and is the closest contemporary source for his life, reports that the Franks annually made war on the Saxons, without commenting upon the reason. The reason--or rather, the excuse--was that the Saxons were "pagan," and their conversion or extermination was ordained by the Bishops. The only other life of Charlemagne claimed to have been compiled from contemporaries was that of Nottker the Stammerer, a German monk who retails stories of flying Bishops and the willful submission of Charlemagne to the authority of the Bishops--it is a silly account to say the least. Careful historical research shows that Charlemagne had no interest in being the "Holy Roman Emperor," and that this was another trick of the Bishops who constantly sought a wider authority for their church. Killing Saxons was just good clean fun, and once the process began, it was tit for tat, with Saxons killing Christians whenever the opportunity offered. The church was a convenient way to sanction the Franks' favorite outdoor sport. To that extent, i agree with your point about the restraint a religion may or may not place on violence within the communities it dominates.

Pagan idolatry was not the only excuse for such exercises, however. If another people possessed property one coveted, it was a simple matter to get them declared heretical and away we go. The Albigensians were a perfect example, and the Pope was nothing loathe to declare a crusade against them.

The Knights of the Teutonic Order used to hunt down the slavic Balts and Letts on the pretext that they were pagans, and when the Orthodox church came to Russia, and the clash between east and west in Europe began, the religious aspect was dropped in favor of outright war for dominance--a war the Teutonic Knights were eventually to lose to the very Christian Jagellon dynasty of the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom. But the dust had hardly settled from the pogroms against pagans when the Great Schism occurred, and more good bloody fun was to be had, culminating with the Protestant Reformation, after which all bets were off, and the black flag was once again hung out all over Europe. Of course, pogroms against the Jews were always very handy to distract the crowd when times were tough, and you could easily whip up some religious sentiment for the entertainment.

All in all, it just doesn't look good for the Christians.

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Terry wrote:

but Islam as practiced in the Middle East does not have a good track record for non-violence.

the track record for non-viloence, of people who practise islam is a just as bad, if not a lot worse, when they are OUTSIDE the middle east.

you can take this from someone who's people have been at the recieving end for millenia. http://sarvadharma.org/Museum/HinduHolocaustMuseum.htm

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Setanta wrote:

By and large, from an historical perspective, Muslims have a pretty good record of non-violence within their communities and among their communities. The turmoil in which the Muslim world has found itself has always been largely a product of the clash of cultures, or the imposition of a new tribal authority from above--examples would be in the Mogul Empire in India, vying against a well-established culture; and the arrival of the Seljuk Turks, who constantly fought among themselves for dominance.

Many of the abuses in the Muslim world arise from the values of tribalism superimposed upon the religious practice. There is no central authority in Islam, which, unlike Christianity, did not go down the road to priests and temples. Within a Muslim community, moral authority rests with the ulama, the "righteous men" of the community. But an alim can be just as tribal as the next guy, and if that includes female infanticide, then Islam would take the rap. Additionally, Mohammed was an illiterate man who seems often to have taken points of view convenient to his own gratification, such as taking multiple wives. Even if one accepts prima facia that the Qu'ran is divinely inspired, as is claimed for the Bible, it is inescapable that it was produced by a single man, who perforce dictated it to a literate man, and the potential for flawed "wisdom" is as great as that which obtains in the tribal maunderings of the old testament. Nevertheless, when undisturbed by outside influences, Muslim communities are largely non-violent. However, no community on this planet lives in a vacuum, and Islam, as with any other established religion, has fragmented into many sects, some of a quite extremist point of view.

Which is perfectly accurate.
What you seem to be overlooking is that Islam fragmented into tribal, sectarian, quite extremist sects very early in its history.
You mention the Moguls and the Seljuks, but you leave out the Shia; the Ismaili; the Assassins; all of the other Shia cults; and the constant warfare between various Sunni tribes (one example being "peaceful" Spain from the Ummayads escaping the rather murderous Abbassids proceeding to the conquering Almoravids onto the Almohads - and all of the various fratricidal adventurers in between).
The history of Islam is one very long history of inter-tribal warfare of one Islamic tribe or sect pitted against another with brief interludes of dominance by one group over the others - which is extremely similiar to Christianity.
Muslims were only semi non-violent within their own tribe or clan.
And, today, 2005, that semi non-violence has indeed degenerated into fratricidal murder amongst all groups of Muslims. Admittedly, this is largely due to the adoption of 20th century fascist ideologies into the framework of Islam, but it is still the most violent religion on this planet today.

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question: should todays events in London be considered religious violence?

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Terry wrote:

If God created everything, then God also created evil. Why do you suppose that he gave the serpent knowledge that he withheld from Adam and Eve? Why would a perfect being choose evil, unless there was a design flaw in its character? How could Adam and Eve be held accountable for a decision made BEFORE they had any concept of good and evil?

Where are you coming from here? Is it to prove that we all came about by chance and evil is just a part of the mix? Or, are you saying that we were created and that some omniscient being originated evil? Nobody is asking you to believe in God or the bible. But if you believe in creation, then someone must have chosen evil.

Terry wrote:

Then why did God punish the snake, if it had no control over its use by Satan? (BTW, Satan seems to be a later concept.)

Are we feeling sorry for snakes, now?

Terry wrote:

It is NOT a "fact" that Adam and Eve "lost their physical perfection." The Bible says nothing of the kind. It only says that they were evicted from Eden so that they could not eat from the tree of life and live forever.

If they had not lost physical perfection, they could have passed it on to their offspring. Know any perfect people?

Terry wrote:

We do not know how long Eve lived, since most women were not important enough for their deaths to be recorded. She may have lived far longer than Adam's 930 years. In any case, God did not say to Adam that he would die within a thousand years of eating the fruit. He said that it would happen on the same day, and a day in Genesis had one evening and one morning. "Prophetic days" were invented to resolve the contradiction.

Invented by whom? and when? There are many meanings for the word 'day' in the bible. You claim to know the bible so you must know them: 'a thousand years'; 'a day for a year'; 'a thousand years is as a watch in the night'; etc. Show me how these expressions were invented to cover up the Genesis 'contradiction'.

BTW, have you ever heard the expression 'dead man walking'?

One more thing to poke your sensibilities: Show me where the seventh creative day is said to have ended.

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panzade wrote:

question: should todays events in London be considered religious violence?

I'm not too sure myself.

I know for a fact that the explosion at Edgware Road and Aldgate are both very close to Muslims districts. Edgware Road tube station is quite close to an area filled with Arabic restaurants and cafes and shops.

Aldgate is unusually close to the east London mosque.

These terrorists are so vicious, they don't care if members of their own religion get caught in the crossfire.

In a way, all religions foster murderous sociopaths, except for Buddhism. I've never known any Buddhists massacring other people, have you?

When Buddhists protested against Diem's Catholic regime in Vietnam before the Vietnam War, they didn't suicide bomb. No, they kind of suicide protested. Sure, they died and they made a huge mess at the same time, but at least they didn't kill any innocent bystanders.

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panzade wrote:

question: should todays events in London be considered religious violence?

I suppose we are leaping to conclusions here by pointing at Muslim extremists and not some disenfranchised British political element. Yet, it doesn't seem reasonable that the French would react in this way over having lost the olympics or to punish the British for their cooking.

But, should it prove to be a religiously motivated attack, does it fit within the purview of Setanta's original post? (I should talk. I've already gone off topic in my exchange with Terry.)

I find it hard to differentiate between murder sanctioned by religion and murder facilitated by religion.

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I just came upon this thread and in glancing thru the posts this one caught my eye.

Terry wrote

Quote:

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.

I hope that was written with tongue in cheek. If not it is frightening that there are people who believe that way.

As to the question. History would without a doubt give that dubious honor to Christianity.

At the present time however, Islam has picked up the torch.

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Moishe, i simply offered a few examples, i wasn't trying to come up with an exhaustive list. Neither have you exhaustively examined the issue of sectarian fragmentation in Islam.

You have however clearly shown your religious prejudice, and as that was the true object of this thread, you've done yoeman's service.

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Setanta wrote:

Moishe, i simply offered a few examples, i wasn't trying to come up with an exhaustive list. Neither have you exhaustively examined the issue of sectarian fragmentation in Islam.

You have however clearly shown your religious prejudice, and as that was the true object of this thread, you've done yoeman's service.

Exhaustively examined sectarian fragmentation...? I like it! Smile

Your notes on Christianity exhaustively examined its murderous ways?
Presumably, if I were to exhaustively examine the issue of sectarian fragmentation in Islam, then it might demonstrate that Islam is the more violent, murderous religion?
Okay. I'll buy that.
And, was it something I wrote that showed my religious prejudice against murdering, barbaric, Islamic / Arab fascist Death Cult butchers?
Hmmm? Let me think. How could you possibly get the impression that I was prejudiced.....
I must go back and examine what I wrote that could possibly give over that impression...

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ebrown_p wrote:

Quote:

And, I would say that it appears to be Deuteronomy's definition of something, although it bears no resemblance to what is called honor killing amongst Muslims.
It sure as hell isn't the "law of Moses."
It is convenient to associate it with Judaism for your purposes.
It bears no resemblance whatsoever to what you wish to call the "law of Moses;" the first five books of the bible called the Five Books of Moses; the Torah; Jewish Law; or anything that even vaguely resembles anything Jewish.

Moishe,

(It seems funny for me to have to teach you about your own religion.)

Deuteronomy is the English name for the fifth book of the Torah. In Hebrew it is דברים.

The passage I quoted, including the part about all the men of the town killing a woman for failure to provide proof of virginity, is right there.

Here is the same reference from a Jewish Torah site. The link has the original Hebrew.

Quote:

20 But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel; 21 then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die; because she hath wrought a wanton deed in Israel, to play the harlot in her father's house; so shalt thou put away the evil from the midst of thee.

Link to Torah

Oh all right eb, I admit I was funnin' you a little bit. I knew what you were trying to explain.
The only problem that I have is that you, and I must confess, about 99% of the human race, haven't the faintest clue as to what Judaism; the Torah; Jewish Law; the "Laws of Moses;" Jewish belief; the Jewish religion; etcetera; etcetera; ad infinitum... is about.
Not a clue.
You, and many, many more, believe that Judaism is some bastard child of Christianity; the sickly brother of Islam...
It is so bizarre.
You believe that because the Christians gave over this passage of Devarim for the last 1500 years from the Greek to the Latin to the English to the G-d knows what, and said this is what it means - in your case, honor killing... that this is what Judaism believes in.
That, my Western educated child, is horsepucky.
According to the Law of Moses; Jewish Law, the passage you quoted from Devarim has nothing to do with honor killing, or even for that matter, whether a bride happens to be a virgin.
The passage you quoted lays out, in the Law of Moses, exactly what is required to make accusations against one's wife and the penalties for these accusations if one has accused falsely.
It lays out that one cannot simply discard or even kill one's wife because one suspects her of adultery; or simply because the man didn't want her or like her anymore, as was a common practice amongst the pagans of the age.
What this paticular passage deliniates is that unless your wife is a complete psychotic whore, then you'd better not make accusations as to her virginity, because you will lose and the penalties for false accusations are quite severe.
A couple of brief legal points in the plethora that are associated with this particular passage is that in order for the bride to be guilty, she would have had to:
a) had sex with another man while she was already married (legally engaged) to her husband;
b) have had at least two witnesses warn her that having sex with another man while she was legally married would make her liable for the death penalty;
and
c) have at least two witnesses observe her having sex with another man while she was legally married;

I suspect that no one is particulary interested in the several thousand words devoted to the above and more, so I'll leave it at that.
The point being, that the "Law of Moses" has nothing to do with your Christian or Islamic interpretations of what you all call the old testament.

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Hey, what happened to all the activity in this thread?

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Set I like the provocative style of your question. And you are probably right about Christianity, or would be, had not the question been phrased in the present tense.
Is christianity the most murderous religion now?

Another point

Of all the religious inspired mayhem that is going on in the world today, Christian/Muslim

Muslim/Jew

Hindu/Muslim

Muslim/Sikh

Muslim/Muslim

I cant help but notice one group name crops up more often than the rest.

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Well, Steve, the Muslims have a distinct feeling of having been left behind by the world. In many respects they have, although more through the exploitation of other Muslims. So much of the precious petroleum wealth of the world is in Muslim lands, and there is so little real freedom in those lands, that it is small wonder there is resentment. Poor men have little to nothing to lose, and it is easy to make the West seem the villian--the more so when the West does indeed focus on the petroleum producing regions.

There is a fundamental divide in how Westerners and Muslims see themselves and one another. In the early 13th century, a man in Andalus traveled to Cairo to settle the estate of a recently deceased relation, and as he no longer had family in Andalus, he made it a journey right across the Muslim world, to the waters of the Torres Straits and what we know as Indonesia. While in Palestine, much of which was still controlled by the Franks, he admitted his puzzlement that poor Muslims preferred, or seemed to, the serfdom of the European feudal system to living among their own co-religionists. He missed a vital point. The Muslim peasant in Antioch or Baghdad in the early 1200's had nothing, and would never have anything. A Muslim who was the serf of a "Franj" invader, had at the least one third of the land he worked for his own, and one third at the least of his labor went to his own benefit. Even that slight difference was a world apart from what he had known when he was little better than the slave of Seljuk or Arab masters.

I do believe that this issue is not going to go away until there is a true measure of economic justice among the Muslims in their own nations. I don't believe we acheive that by invading a nation, and then putting the likes of Ahmed Chalabi in charge of petroleum production. We've got a long way to go just to understand the problem, let alone develop solutions.

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Steve,

Your list is meaningless.

First of all You make no distinction between religious conflicts, ethnic conflicts and political conflicts. Is Iraq Christians vs. Muslims (Bush wouldn't say it that way). Kashmir is a war over land, not relgion.

If you are going to try to point out that Muslims are involved in most conflicts (I am not even sure if that is true), you should also count the percentage of conflicts that involve Christians (I

Here are Recent or Current violent conflicts

Colombia (Christians and Marxists)
Ivory Coast (Christinans and Animists)
Rwanda - Home of a Terrible genocide (Christians and Christians (with a few Animists ))
Korea - (Bhuddist, Christian and Marxist)
Sri Lanka - (Hindu, Bhuddist and Traditional)
Spain vs. Basques (Christian and Christian)
Uganda (Christian and Weird Christian)

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The genocide in Rwanda happened a little more than ten years ago in a country that is 95% Christian. With 800,000 slaughtered, this is without question the most barbaric and brutal crime in recent history-- perpetrated by Christians against Christians.

Ethnic Predjudice - even the ethnic predjudice displayed on this forum- is rarely supported by facts.

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ebrown_p wrote:

The genocide in Rwanda happened a little more than ten years ago in a country that is 95% Christian. With 800,000 slaughtered, this is without question the most barbaric and brutal crime in recent history-- perpetrated by Christians against Christians.

Ethnic Predjudice - even the ethnic predjudice displayed on this forum- is rarely supported by facts.

I thought the question pertained to violence that was in some way related to or motivated by the perpetrator's religion.

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How do you propose to make that distinction Brandon? Before the 20th century, Jews and Muslims lived fairly peacefully (especially compared to Jews and Christians). The problems started with the Palestinian crisis. This is strong evidence that this is a fight over land (as most wars are).

The fact that religious rhetoric is called into service as part of an ethnic conflict is no help to you. Most wars have this feature. Was the civil war (which had a religious rhetoric on both sides) a religious war?

You can't make the claim that every act of violence that involves Muslims is "motivated by religion" and every act motivated by Christians is something else.

Kashmir is a fight over land, Chechnya is a fight for independence (that most Americans supported not so long ago)

In Uganda, the rebels call themselves "The Lord's Resistance Army". Even in this case I wouldn't call this a "religious conflict".

So, Brandon what distinction are you trying to make?

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Brandon9000 wrote:

I thought the question pertained to violence that was in some way related to or motivated by the perpetrator's religion.

No, it does not. I have made that clear recently in this thread. Simply put, the adherents of which religion are the most murderous.

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Which Religion is the one truly most Murderous?

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