Religion Wars of the Past

[Omni]

I have a friend who is a Soto Zen Buddhist. He is counting 40 years in his studies and meditation. He has recently joined a Quaker group, where he has finally been given to understand "the Light." That there is something more than his years of Buddhism has taught him about there being "nothing."

Plus he admitted that in 40 years, he has not been able to forgive his adopted parents for their abuse of him and how angry and lacking in compassion he has been.

I am sure this Buddhist friend tried very hard to reach the goals and ideals of Buddhism. He studied under many different teachers in Asia. But turns out he is human, just like the rest of us, Omni.

Only Christ can really change our hearts and lives. I keep praying for my friend, that he will continue to move towards finding Christ, and the peace and forgiveness only God can bring.

Because Buddhism is a self centered religion, only concerned with achieving a state where the person is able to stop being reincarnated. I have seen movies, and people thinking they are being blessed for giving to the monks who are begging. How much better for the monks to be giving to those who are hungry, sick and poor. And how much better to walk in the light of Christ, instead of the goal of getting rid of self.

Your friend's subjective experience unfortunately isn't representative of all humanity Angela. Sorry to disappoint you. As for him being human, yea, I think I got that part, thanks.

 

[didymos]

Syncretism creates new religions that diverge from old traditions, Didymos, which is exactly why the syncretized religions are fundamentally different from the religions they came from. For instance, blending Roman mythology and the teachings of the Nazarenes is why being "Catholic" is not the same as being "Nazarite" or as being "a worshiper of per deos immortalis", and it's the same reason why "Shamanistic Tibetan" is not the same as "Theravada Buddhist".

The Dhammapada (the words of Guatama Buddha) contains no instruction to war, or to practice shamanism for that matter (shamanism, which is intrinsically about contacting transcendent spirits, which the Buddha of course discounted as useless), quite like how the words of Jesus contain no instruction to venerate Mary or to dress little girls up in wedding gowns and send them to confirmation.

That syncretism changes and warps central philosophies does not disqualify my point, Didymos; it proves it.

It seems you're one of the few 'true buddhists' then. Siddharta would be so proud of you.

 

[Omni]

It seems you're one of the few 'true buddhists' then. Siddharta would be so proud of you.

Boring. Next.

 

[WarriorHadassah]

Hehehehehe! I think folks need laughter in their lives.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C7L5FEVgjA

[h=1]Michael Jr Comedy Christian Church Comedian[/h]

 

[didymos]

Boring. Next.

I'm not here to entertain you, kiddo, so yeah, you'd beter run along and troll somebody else.

 

[kaylagrl]

He's upset by violence in religion.

Pink means "she" just to let you know.

 

[kaylagrl]

I am amazed about forgotten history because I was watching a video about Vlad(Dracula) who fought for the faith of Christianity(Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund ). That lead to Bogomilism , Paulicians, Ottoman Empire, Order of Dragon and the rabbit hole gets deeper and deeper. In other words there has always be battles among different beliefs. It is about POWER! So evil movies about Dracula is about Vlad! WOW! Religion wars of the past just as brutal as today's religion wars. WOW! Blood of innocents! WOW! Christianity vs Muslim vs Jews vs Catholic vs others! Religion wars cost many lives! Hidden history that is not spoken about. If only the stars, oceans, moon, sun, earth, trees can speak about the blood of innocents because religion wars. I wonder what is the numbers(death toll) of innocents during years of religion wars. Time for me stop my ranting because I am shocked! All these religions speak about a PEACEFUL LOVING GOD! Why so much DEATH among the religions!

So Im a little confused here.You start with an explosive post and how indignant you are and then you start posting comedy and other things.Rather odd.

Religion has been blamed for most of the worlds wars.Ask most people and they will say religion causes the majority of wars.But actually someone looked into it.They wrote a three volume encyclopedia about the subject. In fact they looked at 1,763 wars across time and 123 were for religious reasons. About 6% of all wars. If Islam is taken out then it constitutes 3% of all wars.Consider the following...

Non religious wars with lives lost...

• Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000
• Mao Zedong - 37,828,000
• Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000
• Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000
• Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000
• Pol Pot - 2,397,000

Though people will want to argue over whether Hitler had some sort of "Christian" belief the war was not started for religious reasons.Hitler wanted power,to rule the world and killed anyone who got in his way.Over 60 million were killed in WW2.So to postulate that religion is the cause of so many wars and loss of life,its not factual.Hopefully you'll have a better understanding now.

 

[Omni]

So Im a little confused here.You start with an explosive post and how indignant you are and then you start posting comedy and other things.Rather odd.

Religion has been blamed for most of the worlds wars.Ask most people and they will say religion causes the majority of wars.But actually someone looked into it.They wrote a three volume encyclopedia about the subject. In fact they looked at 1,763 wars across time and 123 were for religious reasons. About 6% of all wars. If Islam is taken out then it constitutes 3% of all wars.Consider the following...

It always irks me that this is a commonly held belief. See this:

Non religious wars with lives lost...

• Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000
• Mao Zedong - 37,828,000
• Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000
• Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000
• Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000
• Pol Pot - 2,397,000

This is not fairly represented. Take Stalin, and Lenin, for instance. They weren't into religion, right? Wrong. Both practically made themselves into gods, like little North Korean dictators but far more vehemently murderous. Stalin was brought up as a Georgian Orthodox in a country that barely 50 years previous to his rule was ruled by the Czar, (himself a horridly oppressive leader), the head of the Orthodox church, and Stalin eventually became a totalitarian leader of his own bizarre personality cult. Perhaps it cannot be said that Stalin was religious insofar as the typical portrayal of a man submitting himself to ideals of a higher will, but he was most certainly a self-created god-man, which is just as dangerous and no less religious. As for the people under Stalin's reign, Victor Serge, probably the first man to ever use the word "totalitarian", was a Marxist Russian atheist who despised Lenin's methods. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish intellectual, popularized the term. And what is totalitarianism? It is a system of total absolutism designed that citizens must completely surrender their private lives to a higher will -- in Russia's case, the will of Stalin.

It's of little difference to regimes where a Pope or a cardinal or even a Queen or King, were treated as lords of both the church -- of the heart and the mind -- and of the culture -- the laws and the decrees. In this form, it's not unfair to say that Stalin's regime did subject its citizens under his supreme and total rule, not only in commerce and in culture, but also in heart and in mind.

You couldn't criticize Stalin for fear of reprisal. Free speech was obliterated under his rule, and some would say he even encroached on the territory of free thought. Just like it was profane to speak out against the Pope in Medieval Europe, so it would have been to speak out against Stalin and Lenin under their respective regimes.

Though people will want to argue over whether Hitler had some sort of "Christian" belief the war was not started for religious reasons.Hitler wanted power,to rule the world and killed anyone who got in his way.Over 60 million were killed in WW2.So to postulate that religion is the cause of so many wars and loss of life,its not factual.Hopefully you'll have a better understanding now.

As for Hitler, well, his rule isn't entirely divorced from religion either. In fact, raised a Catholic by his mother, he abandoned Catholicism and created a semi-Nordic, eugenic cult that believed in a superior master race of Scandinavian blood origins. That's a religion in the same sense; a dangerous, oppressive personality cult that met any dissent with execution or worse.

The same can be applied to any of the other leaders on your list. They made themselves gods of totalitarian states with purely delusional ideals based in things like ethnic cleansing, Edenic societies and self-styled "utopias" that had no room for Jews. Just because a brutally enforced despotism doesn't include a leader by the religious title "Christian, Jew, or Muslim", does not mean that what they have created is not a religion.

That these people had to give up their own solidarity and integrity for the glorification of a supreme ruler who legally enforced control of all manner of action -- particularly the sexual -- and required the utter relinquishment of all privacy and autonomy, is by its very definition religion: "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power".

 

[kaylagrl]

[/SIZE]
It always irks me that this is a commonly held belief. See this:



This is not fairly represented. Take Stalin, and Lenin, for instance. They weren't into religion, right? Wrong. Both practically made themselves into gods, like little North Korean dictators but far more vehemently murderous. Stalin was brought up as a Georgian Orthodox in a country that barely 50 years previous to his rule was ruled by the Czar, (himself a horridly oppressive leader), the head of the Orthodox church, and Stalin eventually became a totalitarian leader of his own bizarre personality cult. Perhaps it cannot be said that Stalin was religious insofar as the typical portrayal of a man submitting himself to ideals of a higher will, but he was most certainly a self-created god-man, which is just as dangerous and no less religious. As for the people under Stalin's reign, Victor Serge, probably the first man to ever use the word "totalitarian", was a Marxist Russian atheist who despised Lenin's methods. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish intellectual, popularized the term. And what is totalitarianism? It is a system of total absolutism designed that citizens must completely surrender their private lives to a higher will -- in Russia's case, the will of Stalin.

It's of little difference to regimes where a Pope or a cardinal or even a Queen or King, were treated as lords of both the church -- of the heart and the mind -- and of the culture -- the laws and the decrees. In this form, it's not unfair to say that Stalin's regime did subject its citizens under his supreme and total rule, not only in commerce and in culture, but also in heart and in mind.

You couldn't criticize Stalin for fear of reprisal. Free speech was obliterated under his rule, and some would say he even encroached on the territory of free thought. Just like it was profane to speak out against the Pope in Medieval Europe, so it would have been to speak out against Stalin and Lenin under their respective regimes.



As for Hitler, well, his rule isn't entirely divorced from religion either. In fact, raised a Catholic by his mother, he abandoned Catholicism and created a semi-Nordic, eugenic cult that believed in a superior master race of Scandinavian blood origins. That's a religion in the same sense; a dangerous, oppressive personality cult that met any dissent with execution or worse.

The same can be applied to any of the other leaders on your list. They made themselves gods of totalitarian states with purely delusional ideals based in things like ethnic cleansing, Edenic societies and self-styled "utopias" that had no room for Jews. Just because a brutally enforced despotism doesn't include a leader by the religious title "Christian, Jew, or Muslim", does not mean that what they have created is not a religion.

That these people had to give up their own solidarity and integrity for the glorification of a supreme ruler who legally enforced control of all manner of action -- particularly the sexual -- and required the utter relinquishment of all privacy and autonomy, is by its very definition religion: "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power".

Well any belief can be considered "religious" I suppose. Any dictator sees themselves as "gods" and their will is law. But these killings were for power and land grabs,they were not religious in nature. Im not exactly sure what these encyclopedias used as a criteria for war being religious or not. Man I dont know if I could read through three volumes on wars.I like to read but that seems a daunting task.I'll look into it and see if I can find more info on the books and the criteria used.

 

[Yeraza_Bats]

[/SIZE]
It always irks me that this is a commonly held belief. See this:



This is not fairly represented. Take Stalin, and Lenin, for instance. They weren't into religion, right? Wrong. Both practically made themselves into gods, like little North Korean dictators but far more vehemently murderous. Stalin was brought up as a Georgian Orthodox in a country that barely 50 years previous to his rule was ruled by the Czar, (himself a horridly oppressive leader), the head of the Orthodox church, and Stalin eventually became a totalitarian leader of his own bizarre personality cult. Perhaps it cannot be said that Stalin was religious insofar as the typical portrayal of a man submitting himself to ideals of a higher will, but he was most certainly a self-created god-man, which is just as dangerous and no less religious. As for the people under Stalin's reign, Victor Serge, probably the first man to ever use the word "totalitarian", was a Marxist Russian atheist who despised Lenin's methods. Hannah Arendt, a Jewish intellectual, popularized the term. And what is totalitarianism? It is a system of total absolutism designed that citizens must completely surrender their private lives to a higher will -- in Russia's case, the will of Stalin.

It's of little difference to regimes where a Pope or a cardinal or even a Queen or King, were treated as lords of both the church -- of the heart and the mind -- and of the culture -- the laws and the decrees. In this form, it's not unfair to say that Stalin's regime did subject its citizens under his supreme and total rule, not only in commerce and in culture, but also in heart and in mind.

You couldn't criticize Stalin for fear of reprisal. Free speech was obliterated under his rule, and some would say he even encroached on the territory of free thought. Just like it was profane to speak out against the Pope in Medieval Europe, so it would have been to speak out against Stalin and Lenin under their respective regimes.



As for Hitler, well, his rule isn't entirely divorced from religion either. In fact, raised a Catholic by his mother, he abandoned Catholicism and created a semi-Nordic, eugenic cult that believed in a superior master race of Scandinavian blood origins. That's a religion in the same sense; a dangerous, oppressive personality cult that met any dissent with execution or worse.

The same can be applied to any of the other leaders on your list. They made themselves gods of totalitarian states with purely delusional ideals based in things like ethnic cleansing, Edenic societies and self-styled "utopias" that had no room for Jews. Just because a brutally enforced despotism doesn't include a leader by the religious title "Christian, Jew, or Muslim", does not mean that what they have created is not a religion.

That these people had to give up their own solidarity and integrity for the glorification of a supreme ruler who legally enforced control of all manner of action -- particularly the sexual -- and required the utter relinquishment of all privacy and autonomy, is by its very definition religion: "The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power".

Believing they were "gods" does not qualify for a war caused by religion.

Having a religious influence in their life does not qualify for a war caused by religion either.


It that were the case, 100% of wars would be entirely blamed on religion, because even the vast majority of atheist have at some point had something to do with some religion.


This is really streching the line in order to defend your doctrine of "religion is the cause of all evils in the world".



Again, I am not some great defender of the worlds religions, but even still, you are really stretching truth to fit your doctrine.

 

[Omni]

Believing they were "gods" does not qualify for a war caused by religion.

Having a religious influence in their life does not qualify for a war caused by religion either.


It that were the case, 100% of wars would be entirely blamed on religion, because even the vast majority of atheist have at some point had something to do with some religion.


This is really streching the line in order to defend your doctrine of "religion is the cause of all evils in the world".



Again, I am not some great defender of the worlds religions, but even still, you are really stretching truth to fit your doctrine.

Blind and total faith in any idea or person is dangerous and that's been proven time and again throughout history. In Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, he talks about the need of the people to eradicate the Jews, how they are the source of the woes of Germans, how blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan humans are the superior race and if these are allowed to breed out all other races there will become an Edenic, utopian German society with pure values at its core. And Hitler, of course, thought himself the man to lead this revolution. He instated death camps to exterminate the disabled, Jews, those of inferior races; he propagandized unfounded pseudoscientific theories on other races; he ordered experimentation on children; he instated a totalitarian state with a delusional cultural-religious ideal with him as its god-head, and any dissent or deviation was severely punished.

During the fascist movement in Europe, Mussolini, who was like Hitler also raised a Catholic and grew to despise the Catholic church, created a similar environment in Italy. And in fact, during the extermination of the Ethiopians (back then called Assybians) in north Africa, Mussolini gained the favour of the Catholic Church who supported him in his campaigns. In fact, the Vatican at the time declared it a justified "holy war".

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god, or gods.

In the German's cases, that power was Hitler, Nazism, and the Aryan creed. In the Russian's cases, that power was Stalin and Stalinism. The pattern continues. In fact, these leaders not only considered themselves as messengers of some radical, transformative ideals which would change the world but which also required absolute obedience and a totalitarian authority, they also persecuted anybody they perceived to stand in their way, whether those people were Jews, Christians, atheists, scientists, farmers, women, children or infants. These are men of absolutist beliefs, who hold extremely black and white moral views, practice extreme prejudice and total ruthlessness, and tolerate no dissent.

And had we, as secular nations full of free, multi-religious and multi-cultural peoples, not fought these oppressors for the freedoms to live our lives under our own personal individual liberties, opposing tyrannical regimes so that free people could live alongside one another with civility, autonomy, and equal rights for all, then these fanatical preachers, like Hitler, like Stalin, and their corrupt and deluded ideals, their totalitarian regimes, would have overcome us, and we would be worshiping not the God of the bible or the Allah of Islam or the Buddha or nothing at all, in freedom and alongside one another: no, we'd be worshiping Stalins and Lenins and Mao-Zedongs and Hitlers.

One such country, were men like these were allowed, unopposed by secular ideals, to become gods in the minds of the people, exists today: North Korea, where Kim Jong Un's grandfather, Kim-Il Sung, a man who has been dead for over twenty years, is still the official head of state, and is worshiped like a god.

 

[WarriorHadassah]

Sometimes we need to take a moment to regroup because it becomes too serious. I was watching a video about Ottaman Empire and I was surprise about the information which I research abound and it was true. History that is not spoken about within any religion, politics, and social issues is lack of power and knowledge. What a person does not know may hurt in the long run because truth shall set a person free from enslavement of society. Yes, truth can be shocking in nature. I do prefer truth no matter how shocking it maybe because freedom is important to me. Laughter is great for the soul! I have learn much from this person of enlightenment, confirmation and revelation. I am going to LOVE all of humanity not base on religion, gender, class, race or etc. All common folks desire peace in their lives through out nations and those who truly love their GOD. Politics/Religion is like a coin, one side is politics and other side religion.

 

[passing_through]

Vlad Dracula was not a Christian, he was a empaler of hundreds. That is why the ficticius Vampire Dracula was associated with blood.

 

[Yeraza_Bats]

Blind and total faith in any idea or person is dangerous and that's been proven time and again throughout history. In Hitler's book, Mein Kampf, he talks about the need of the people to eradicate the Jews, how they are the source of the woes of Germans, how blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan humans are the superior race and if these are allowed to breed out all other races there will become an Edenic, utopian German society with pure values at its core. And Hitler, of course, thought himself the man to lead this revolution. He instated death camps to exterminate the disabled, Jews, those of inferior races; he propagandized unfounded pseudoscientific theories on other races; he ordered experimentation on children; he instated a totalitarian state with a delusional cultural-religious ideal with him as its god-head, and any dissent or deviation was severely punished.

During the fascist movement in Europe, Mussolini, who was like Hitler also raised a Catholic and grew to despise the Catholic church, created a similar environment in Italy. And in fact, during the extermination of the Ethiopians (back then called Assybians) in north Africa, Mussolini gained the favour of the Catholic Church who supported him in his campaigns. In fact, the Vatican at the time declared it a justified "holy war".

Religion: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal god, or gods.

In the German's cases, that power was Hitler, Nazism, and the Aryan creed. In the Russian's cases, that power was Stalin and Stalinism. The pattern continues. In fact, these leaders not only considered themselves as messengers of some radical, transformative ideals which would change the world but which also required absolute obedience and a totalitarian authority, they also persecuted anybody they perceived to stand in their way, whether those people were Jews, Christians, atheists, scientists, farmers, women, children or infants. These are men of absolutist beliefs, who hold extremely black and white moral views, practice extreme prejudice and total ruthlessness, and tolerate no dissent.

And had we, as secular nations full of free, multi-religious and multi-cultural peoples, not fought these oppressors for the freedoms to live our lives under our own personal individual liberties, opposing tyrannical regimes so that free people could live alongside one another with civility, autonomy, and equal rights for all, then these fanatical preachers, like Hitler, like Stalin, and their corrupt and deluded ideals, their totalitarian regimes, would have overcome us, and we would be worshiping not the God of the bible or the Allah of Islam or the Buddha or nothing at all, in freedom and alongside one another: no, we'd be worshiping Stalins and Lenins and Mao-Zedongs and Hitlers.

One such country, were men like these were allowed, unopposed by secular ideals, to become gods in the minds of the people, exists today: North Korea, where Kim Jong Un's grandfather, Kim-Il Sung, a man who has been dead for over twenty years, is still the official head of state, and is worshiped like a god.

I stopped reading your post after you equated people following a man who promised to save a nation with wars based on religion. There is no war without a belief of some kind, other than a war merely to take something you want. Thats a human thing, and would happen no matter what the person believed, and you just proved my point with your post here


Yup, people fight over everything, and that includes a man who says he will lead our nation to glory, yes. Welcome to humanity