• hogunner@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    246
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    8 months ago

    Organized religion can get fucked along with all these deathmongers using “god” as an excuse to kill or harm others.

      • Not_mikey@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        8 months ago

        Nah, your thinking of nationalism. WWI and WWII had very little to do with religion but in terms of body count far exceed the likes of the crusades. If you ask your average soldier throughout history why they’re doing what they’re doing patriotism will come up more often than God. Naked self interest would probably be the actual top reason but people don’t usually say the quiet part aloud.

        • Celediel@slrpnk.net
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          8 months ago

          Nationalism has only been a thing for a few hundred years, though. We’ve been murdering each other over religion for millenia. I still think religion “wins”.

        • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 months ago

          ask your average soldier throughout history why they’re doing what they’re doing patriotism will come up more often than God.

          Country/Nation is a rather new concept - most people throughout history would say which village/area they were from. It didn’t have to be a Holy War for the leader to say “we have to fight (invaders) because they are an affront to (whatever god.)”

          I don’t imagine the average peasant would care the nation of the person taking taxes from them, so long as those taxes were low and that’s all they took. (I mean obviously they didn’t love paying taxes.) And remember, one of the reasons used for the taking of taxes was that leaders were ordained by God.

      • fluxion@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        8 months ago

        World War 1 and 2 weren’t a walk in the park. There are plenty of non-religious sociopaths that somehow find themselves in control of millions of people.

          • fluxion@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            8 months ago

            Hitler and Stalin couldn’t give less than a shit about any particular god or religion. They used any excuse to fund/justify their tyranny. People like that in power are the bane of mankind’s existence throughout the ages. Religion is just another tool for people like this to use use whenever it’s convenient.

            • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              8 months ago

              Hitler …couldn’t give less than a shit about any particular god or religion.

              I’d say he gave a pretty big shit about at least one religion.

              • fluxion@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                I’m not sure how much one can harp on the whole “master race” thing before people stop trying to blame it on some actual scholarly disagreement about religious doctrine, as if Hitler and Stalin were so fucking pious. None of theae psychopaths give a shit about gods and religion.

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        More like the biggest excuse for murdering others for your own benefit. If religion didn’t exist, demagogues would find something else as a tool to justify blind hatred.

      • cannache@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 months ago

        Ask me and I would say almost all suffering and experience has a purpose and a potential lesson to be understood, vices, religion and spirituality etc. If you believe in drugs, Karma or a God, as a form of spirituality, etc, you would probably have imagined the possibility of group narcissism and misguided interventions being the reasons behind certain suffering, so religion would naturally be the next big step, to try to convince everyone to be of one mind.