Church, state and the muslim faith

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thewooze

Guest
Hello everyone, I'm new to the forum and have two interests in starting this thread though unrelated. The first and most obvious is the impact of having a religious government in the twenty first century. I propose that having a populations religious and political attention on the same person or group removes many checks and balances afforded by our own separation. America is not a Christian state, in fact the most recent examples I can think of are Catholic Spain(Inquisition) and England/France when they were religious states(the crusades), Israel(ongoing violence w/ Palestinians) and Muslim states who have had a history both modern and long term of violence. Europe has more or less made the separation however the middle-east hasn’t. Is this the reason there continues to be violence there? My point being that Islam is no more violent than Christianity, and the violence is a function of mixing government and religion not which religion. And if so should we call for more religion in our own government?

Secondarily there seams to be a lot of sniping at one another over our backgrounds: where we are from, what we do etc. I suggest that if we know the perspective of each person then it will explain a great deal of the positions currently being made. If this information is accessible from the user profiles then I would like to know where to find it.
 
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jimmy

Drunkard
And A "Zagggamzassszrzrzrzrzr!" to you, sir!

First off, good to have you here, Woozle!! Keep fighting the good fight, brutha! And enjoy that weather out there...lucky s.o.b.. And hey--holler at us before you ship out!

Anyway, there was a thread earlier about seperation of Church and State. Surprisingly, this issue didn't come up at ALL. I think this is a PERFECT example of two things here:

1. Relgion closely tied with (or encompassing) state is a dangerous mix that will most likely lead to conflict on a serious and long-term scale.

2. The biggest problem in the Middle East is this lack of spereration and, thus, the only way to deal with the probem is through diplomacy since you can't convince these governments that their religious claims and mandates, etc, are wrong.

Oh and about getting to know people's backgrounds. They're available on the "profile" option IF people put them there. Otherwise, as is done here, you wait until someone reveals their background and then you make assumptions about who they are and what they think from then on. It's a real invigorating process!!
 
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James D

Member
Jimmy,

Your quote

you wait until someone reveals their background and then you make assumptions about who they are and what they think from then on.

This is called being prudent.

You always discount what a person says, and watch to see what they do.

When you see what they do, then you know about their character, their intelligence, education, and back ground.

Once you determine this information, then you can make subjective assumptions about what they will do in certain situations.
 
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jimmy

Drunkard
"Once you determine this information, then you can make subjective assumptions about what they will do in certain situations."


...and THEN, you can look like a fool as your attempts to pigeon-hole someone from discussions about 2-5 topics on an online forum are show to be inaccurate and you realize that you are not a good enough judge of character to extract the true nature of someone from this type of interaction...

Sounds like a good plan to me!!
 
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thewooze

Guest
Well my intent for these topics has not fully been met. I was hoping people would reveal atleast minimal information about one another,(I found minimal information in the user profiles) I think this is strange since yall have been talking to each other for months yet seem to not even know one anothers backgrounds. If any one is curious about where I am coming from I will tell them.

As for the main topic I feel the association between religious states and violence may be that the government has a built in justification for the war. ie in the crusades christians went to war in the middle east largely to open trade and markets however that only helped the rich so to sell it to the masses they put it in the guise of religion. Now in the middle east states are able to justify any aggression they have(for political, economic or personal reasons) as being part of a holly war. Whether or not they have legitimate underlying reasons is not the issue only that there true reasons can be masked with faith.
 
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jimmy

Drunkard
Right and this brings up a good point.

This is exactly what got these religions started in the first place! Appealing to the masses had a HUGE influence on the tenants tought. Mohammed was an aggressive prophet; Jesus was a comforter.

Mohammed's people were CLAMMORING for a Prophet from God that was more aggressive and war-like. This is one of the reasons that SO many Jews didn't believe Jesus was the "messiah" spoken of in the OT; he did nothing to aggressively change things. They were expecting a king who would rule with an iron fist.

But at the same token, the tenents of Christianity appealed at the time to the masses in Rome and became such a force that, and my name here is probably off, the Emperor (Constantine?) went so far as to say that he had "had a vision" of some sort just to gain the affection of the predominantly Christian masses. Thus, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and the spread began from there.

Certainly an abridged version but it does speak to the idea that Religion is a GREAT control of the masses when utilized by an authority figure. What better way to convince someone to fight and die for your political cause if you tell them that "God is on their side" etc. and make them believe that THEY are good and their OPPONENTS are evil.

Most religions do this and this is why I have such a problem accepting relgion. Sprituality is one thing and a personal relationship with God is another, but these arguements about which religion inspires more hatred and which has caused more bloodshed; it's all politics masked with religion to make it acceptable to the masses.
 
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andwhat

Member
Great to have you around wozzle poost.
I'll definitely have to catch up with you next time you're around.

Anyway I agree with Jimmy (not that all of you otherss out there will be surprised since you assumed we're the same people). As Lenin put it "Religion is an oppiate for the masses." Everyone one of us has a desire to be a part of something larger than ourselces, its evident in our basic family structure, the concept of marriage, sports teams etc. Religion allows a group of people to believe in something that is more than the sum of its parts. This is what made th counter culture a bit of a revolution, the desire to be part of something else. I would say that in Countries where there is no seperation between church and state you have the forces of nationalism (a type or sense of belonging) combined with something even more powerful, one's faith.

Because one's faith cannot be scientifically proven, an attack or questioning of one's faith by another is taken personally. When you combine this over millions of people in a religiously controlled state and add the forces of nationalism, what you have is inevitably powerful and inevitably dangerous.

Teh greatest way to understand this is a quote byt none other than the greatest thinker and genius of the post modern era, I speak of course about Brett Michaels of Poison who said "Just give me something to believe in."
 
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daniel

Member
HEHE, you had me rolling with that one andwhay. just when i think you are gonna quote some philisopher you bust out wit Poison.....funny stuff.

Wooze, i hope you enjoy your float. Hope to hear from you soon!
 
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