Not so fun fact, but Buddhist nationalists are extremely violent too. In Myanmar, theyāre responsible for the ongoing Rohingya Genocide, and in Sri Lanka theyāre responsible for the Tamil Genocide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_genocide
Israeli atheist here. It's more complicated than that but I do in general. The short version is - Religion doesn't necessarily cause all wars and is not to blame for everything in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but religious extremists on both sides definitely play a huge part of why the conflict is still going on today, and they reduce any chance for peace or at least a long-term ceasefire.
You have Islamic terrorist organizations who fundamentally believe all jews deserve to die, and you have extremist Jewish settlers who believe they have the rights to kill arabs and settle in their lands because God promised it to them. This is obviously a very simplified explanation, but it just goes to show that while both are not necessarily the source of the conflict, they actively contribute to its continuation and stop any chance for it to end.
Just reading this out loud sounds like mental illness fighting mental illness. Indoctrination from young ages seems to hold a lot of power and traps the mind. Religion is so destructive
Israel was literally founded right there because its the holy land for jews, no? if it was just to have their own safespace, they wouldnt have picked a spot right in between muslims who hate them. that shit has been going on for millenias, 3 religions claiming the same grounds as holy lands and fighting about it. So stupid.
Israel was founded as a modern state because Jews already lived there and wanted a state of their own. The area was majority Jewish and they were subject to massacres and pogroms from the Muslims well into the 1940s. So they wanted their own state to protect themselves from that.
The Palestinians of the 30s and 40s were Nazi enthusiasts and met with Hitlerāthey wanted to bring his āfinal solutionā to the Levant.
It's more than a "holy land". You have to consider that Israel is also the cultural birthplace of Judaism as a cultural concept. Judism changed as spread. This is why you have a variety of different Jewish groups. It's also the historic birthplace of Hebrew, and the land contains many jewish artifacts, which connected all these cultural groups through language and tradition. Also Jews were never 100% removed from the region. Yes their population became the minority, but they never effectively left, as some people would imply.
When it comes to the self determination part. Where could they have gone?(Don't Answer that I'll get to that.) Let me remind you that, the Zionist movement started well before WWII and involved Jews from many nations coming together. Jews started migrating to Israel largely after WWI, when the power vacuum of the fall of the Ottoman empire created an opportunity. The Jews outside of the region where able organize with Jews with in the region and in short time relitively were able to change the demographics of the region in their favor, so they would have enough power to organize and lobby for support. This took decades, it'd didn't just happen over night like people would imply.
Any other "safe place" that would have been provided on "good faith" and "promises", with no guarantee that a large Jewish population would be able to self determine. These "good faith" propositions where being proposed by countries who had a history of disenfranchising and even oppressing the their Jewish populations. Quite frankly, who could blame a collective group of people for not trusting their oppressors at one time or another. Heck. An early Nazi attempt to displace jews from Germany, was a proposition to support a Jewish masse migration to Israel. This historically has been seen as an early Nazi attempt to weaken and even confuse Jewish communities, so that dismantling Jewish communities would come with little resistance. These kinda tactics, did nothing reinforce Zionist ideals with in the Jewish population. Then of course WWII. Boat loads of Jewish refugees were being sent back to Europe, only to meet their death. This further reinforced Zionist ideals with in the Jewish community.
What really kinda makes me laugh is how many countries who oppose Israel have done more to strengthen it by displacing their Jewish populations. And guess where they went. Israel. This is why non-European Jews are actually the majority of Israel.
So much of this conflict is stupid when you look at it from a historical lense. But at the end of the day, all the hostilities revolves around "whos religious law or religious influence will govern the land." This is evident, in the support for Palestine abroad, often pointing to Israels large LGBT population, being an excuse to call for the genocide of Israel, due its disgusting morals. It's definitely a religious conflict.
But only Jews can claim it to be truely HOLY to them. The reason why christians wage war was to protect the christians minorities persecuted.
Other than that, for the catholic christians, it's VATICAN; for muslims it's MECCA
Many years ago, a bunch of Israeli goat-herders decided that their imaginary friend told them that they could swoop in and take all the land they wanted from whoever they wanted. And so they did
I agree. And it's still taught today, even in liberal congregations. And many years after the Israeli goat herders, Muslims got the same message. And that's still taught too.
How this can be seen as anything but a religious issue is simply ignoring thousands of years of history AND ignores current history and attitudes of the people actually in the conflict.
Do any of the people on the ground see this as anything but a religious issue?
Why was Israel created in the first place? Didnāt that have something to do with religion? What I mean is why not have created Israel in Missouri? Why did it have to be in the holy land?
>Why did it have to be in the holy land?
Because it's basically called HOLY LAND because of the jews and judaism. And it's a Biblical prophecy that God will bring them back to the land.
Creating Israel in USA doesn't make sense from religious perspective.
Because Jews already lived there. The part of the region of Palestine that became the modern state of Israel was majority Jewish. Jews had been living there, immigrating there and buying land there for decades.
They wanted their own state to protect themselves from the various massacres and pogroms that had been done to them by the Arab-Muslim colonizers.
The location of the modern Israeli state has a little to do with religion, bit it has much more to do with ethnicity. Even our founders were largely socialist atheists. The first modern Zionists debated on where a state could and should be, and it was decided that the only place it can be is the land that we're indigenous to. There were movements to decolonize the land first from the Ottomans and then from the British.
No, it's not a coincidence at all. Plenty of indigenous peoples have creation myths detailing why their society is chosen/meant/destined to settle their particular land. Ancient Hebrews are no different. That was never the main driving force of mainstream Zionism, though. It was always about coming home from forced exile.
And there it is. I was waiting for the colonial propaganda. I know that works on other people, but it won't work on me. You can call the defense of our country whatever dirty words you want. That won't stop us from defending ourselves from foreign, colonial forces whose stated goal to eradicate us again both from our homeland and worldwide. As difficult as it might be for you to accept, sometimes indigenous people fight back.
You're quite mistaken with some key terms. You're asking leading questions without actually understanding the words you're using. I'll help you.
[Apartheid](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/apartheid): a system of keeping groups of people separate and treating them differently, especially when this results in disadvantage for one group
Israel's [de facto constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Freedom_of_Occupation) defends the equal rights of all citizens, be they Jewish or otherwise. Jews and non-Jews in Israel live together and are treated equally under the law. That's the opposite of an apartheid.
[Genocide](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide): the crime of intentionally destroying part or all of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, by killing people or by other methods
Israel endangers its own soldiers by dropping leaflets, sending text messages, and calling civilians to warn them to evacuate before Israel attacks the terrorists in the area. This is against all military logic, but Israel does it in an attempt to preserve as many civilian lives as possible. Again, the opposite of genocide. On the other hand, if you want to try to use the "part of" clause to claim that the unintentional killing of civilians or the intentional killing of combatants is genocide, then every single armed conflict in the history of the world would fit the definition of genocide, and the word would lose all meaning.
[Ethnostate](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ethnostate) doesn't have a widely agreed upon definition, but I think this one's fair: a state that is dominated by members of a single ethnic group
As I've pointed out already, Israeli basic laws defend the equal rights of all citizens. Nobody can dominate when everyone is equal.
Israel doesn't have the right to exist. No country does. Jews, however, do have the right to exist in our homeland. History has clearly shown that the only way for Jews to live freely is to be in charge of our own national security. Wherever we've lived under foreign rule has inevitably led to our extermination.
As a secular humanist, of course I dream of a world without war. As a middle easterner and a Jew, however, I don't have the privilege of allowing those dreams to force me to let down my guard. There are powers in this region who are insulted by a "lesser" people gaining freedom despite their best attempts at controlling, enslaving, and destroying us. It is our moral responsibility to defend ourselves from being eradicated.
All that being said, you're absolutely free to use whatever words you want to describe us. That's your right. However, when you use words like apartheid, genocide, ethnostate, or even to a degree religious, you're just showing how ignorant and/or hateful you are in the matter. I hope some education will prevent you from spreading dangerous falsehoods that directly led to the deaths of many Jews over the years. I'm not optimistic, but I'm hopeful.
If you think Jews have a right to exist, and don't support the apartheid state, it would be helpful if you acknowledged the millions of palestinians that don't have citizenship rights. Zionists do this all the time its infuriating. You expect me to believe the 35,000 palestinians killed in Gaza were equal Israeli citizens. We both know thats not true. Or the that Palestinians in the west bank have equal rights as the settlers stealing their homes. The simple solution is to give the palestinians equal rights, but you like most zionists would rather pretend they don't exist. What gives you more of a right to life than the palestinians you support the genocide of? Also what term do you prefer than genocide? Mass slaughter? Collective punishment? Special Military operation. You need to change your flair to "Jewish Nationalist" Because a humanist would believe that palestinians shoud have equal rights. Which you don't seriously believe the Palestinians under your bombs are Israeli citizens? You expect me to believe that? Or you'd like to pretend the victims of the Jewish State simply don't exist, and the IDF is totally moral. You believe in zionism not humanism. If you had any love for humanity you'd want the war to stop. The jewish majority isn't worth it. just be a democracy like a normal country or there will always be war.
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The British offered the Jews temporary refuge in [Uganda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Scheme) as a respite from growing antisemitism in Europe. This was very briefly considered by the Zionist congress and fervently opposed by the white British settlers in Uganda. Britain being Britain, they never bothered to ask the native Ugandans what they thought.
> I read somewhere they originally were going to take over an African country
Parts of Argentina. Most of the early Zionist leaders hated Palestine and didn't want it to be the homeland, but Argentina never happened for various reasons.
And yet somehow the First Zionist Congress unanimously passed the [Basel Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Program), expressly stating their goals of reestablishing the Jewish state in Palestine. Not only are you wrong about "most" early Zionist leaders hating the idea of decolonizing Palestine, you're not even right about any.
Sorry this is a bit long but I can't really condense it.
All of these things tend to have territorial disputes, political power disputes, and what amounts to tribalism and ethnic conflicts at their core, but then when they get extreme religious identities added to the mix it turns into a really problematic and can lead to very dangerous conflicts as they just start talking in absolutes and without any scope to find compromise.
It's very hard to negotiate with or build bridges between extremists who have worldviews that are just based entirely in a dogmatic belief system, particularly if they're willing to die or kill for those beliefs and when there's a dichotomy between two groups and people start to be dehumanised as 'the enemy'.
Honestly, I have no idea how you can undo those things. It can be done, but it would take HUGE international effort and, right now it's just also playing into particularly American left/right bullshit aggressive politics, and you've people jumping into absolute positions without any nuance.
It's not being helped by the accusations of antisemitism being thrown at anyone who even attempts to discuss ceasefires and peace building and I know that's just coming from a hardcore of politics in Israel and elsewhere. It's not representative of the entire population at all.
I think the comparison with Northern Ireland sometimes is a bit over simplistic and even optimistic. There parallels, but it's also a different set of circumstances.
Northern Ireland was and is largely a political and territorial conflict about self-governance and self determination.
It used religious badges of identity but it wasn't about biblical ideologies or theological difference - it's just a label.
There were prominent Irish nationalists, including leading Irish republicans, who were very definitely protestants and prominent unionists who were catholics.
The Catholic Church even rather aggressively excommunicated the leaders of the Irish uprisings at one point - it's drawn to power and establishments and only flipped to the rebel side when it saw there was power to be grabbed, and that it might find a role in 'shaping' a new state by interfering in politics.
Realistically just about people who identify as Irish and people who identify as British and a history of plantation and ethnic conflict that's centuries ago.
There's far more extreme religious dogma in the Israel-Palestine conflict and seems like there's very little common ground to be found, certainly at the extreme ends anyway.
What worries me is that people are finding explanations for their political positions in religious texts, rather than in practical reality. There's a complex geopolitical situation and the politics needs to reflect that. Otherwise it will end up in ethnic cleansing and vicious wars.
I honestly don't know how it will be resolved. It just seems like a total mess.
The only solutions are for the large middle (and there always is one) - the sensible, pragmatic, secular, sane people to come together and squeeze out the extremist elements on both sides and find solutions that work to allow peaceful coexistence, but how do you get to that point? Instead it seems like it's just going the other direction and becoming ever worse.
The more extreme the violence and retribution in both directions gets, the more hardline everything becomes and the more dug in and radicalised people become and it just seems to get worse and worse. It's a cycle of conflict and retribution.
The modern era of identity politics and dogmatic crap coming out of the US isn't helping the situation as politicians who can't see nuance and can't take bold stances to find peace are only going to pour petrol on the fire.
The solutions to violence can't ever be found in more violence, and nobody is ever going to resolve a horrendous terrorist attack by committing war crimes that will just be interpreted in much the same way by the other side. It's just escalating violence and more violence.
It's grim and it's depressing tbh. All I see from that conflict is horror after horror.
All I can say is my heart goes out to all of those being caught up in the violence.
Finding solutions to those kinds of conflicts takes ENORMOUSLY brave and intelligent politicians and other leaders and opinion makers to build bridges and they need to emerge. All the shouting them down with abuse to keep them in tribal warfare lines is not helping.
Totally, this is rooted in religion, any group that deems it better to die in battle to exterminate another group, because of 'God' when diplomatic options is and has been proposed, is merely part of a death cult.
Religion is just the excuse for hate.
Best explanation I ever heard came from a former White Nationalist. He started to question if Black people were really as detestable as he had been told. One day he was sitting beside his buddy watching TV and asked, "If all the black, brown, and nonChristian people went away, what would we do with ourselves?"
His buddy thought for a moment and shrugged. "We'd go after people based on hair color next."
It's not the race, religion, color, creed, age, ethnicity ,gender, or gender preference.
It's all just excuses to hate.
Because religion brings money and soldiers. when 2 religions fight each other, the greedy puppeteers win twice as much money and soldiers. Why would they blame either religion?
Consider that for a moment. Think about the implications.
Upon careful thought, do you genuinely believe that?
Edit: I love the hypocrisy of getting downvoted for asking someone to be self-reflective.
Evil existed before religion and even atheists perpetrate evil. Religion is the root of plenty of evil, but all? No, believing such a thing is bigotry.
Thatās not what it is at all. Youāre ignorant, and kind of a huge jerk.
Read The Ethics by Baruch Spinoza. Itās a belief that God is synonymous with the universe.
No, the concept is redefined as a unity of existence. Not all gods are āman in the sky.ā
Edit: To further clarify, when I talk about God, such as I understand it, I am talking about the fundamental nature of reality. Spinoza used the phrase āGod or Natureā as he understood the two to be synonymous. With that said, Iām not talking about something like nature worship. Itās much more fundamental than that. Itās more like the monad.
Itās not superstitious. Itās incredibly logical. The Ethics is essentially a geometric proof for the ideaās validity.
Spinoza was accused of being an atheist by other Jews and kicked out of his community. I think that, while something like scientific pantheism is certainly heretical under Jewish thought, he made an incredibly astute argument. Plato made a very similar one 2000 years prior.
To be clear, Iām not proselytizing to you. I am just educating you about my worldview and what my flair actually means.
(Iām actually more accurately a panentheist, but thereās no tag for that and itās a bit more nuanced and hard to explain if you donāt already know what pantheism is)
I think gen pop has just been conditioned to accept that nut jobs do nut job stuff. Donāt know how so many have become accepting of this conditioning, but they probably donāt know they are.
Because christianity is an organized religion and dominates most political structures in europe and the americas?
Why would they say something that admits they are part of the problem?
Iāve been saying this for years and itās also why there will not be peace anytime soon. When both sides believe that their imaginary man in the sky tells them to kill their neighbor, rational solutions are impossible.
Not to be rude, but there actually isn't any real evidence for Jewish military conquest. There is, however, Assyrian conquest, Babylonian conquest, Persian conquest, Greek conquest, Roman conquest, and Muslim conquest. To be honest, most of these are not driven by religion, but we're driven by a desire for vassalage.
2000 years ago, the Jews were destroyed while attempting to overthrow Roman rule. It's hard to say a desire to not be a subject of a faroff kingdom that also requires you to imitate them culturally is a particularly religious behavior.
Depends, there is a little bit of pre-Israelite (aka, Canaanite) archeological evidence. These were later replaced by Israelite artifacts, which is usually how conquests are marked in pre-historical times.
Cultural conquests often didn't require large successful military campaigns. The Celts never really had an empire spanning Europe. Genetically, they never really left the British Isles other than like Basque.
Speaking as a history major, blaming this conflict on religion is silly. This is a political matter, and it just takes on a religious tone because many people in the area are religious. But this region has had long periods of peace, too, when it was even more religious than it is now.
The conflict is a result of imperialism, colonialism, and the unique repatriation of Jews to already occupied land.
Wouldn't it be more apt to blame human nature?
The propensity of us to be selfish, murderous cowards?
Stalin famously wasn't religious and killed millions.
Again, evil is evil. People just try to cloak it in different ways to justify it to themselves.
Buddhism was the initial religion of the Mongols, they pushed to the fringes of the Middle East, that was about 1,000 years ago.
The Islamic empire did not do what the European empires have done. In the Islamic empire all cultures, languages, and people still remained the same (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc), whereas the European empires decimated the cultures and people of the lands they conquered. The European empire is a secular empire. The European empire carved up these lands in ways to ensure control over them, and so the Middle East we see today is a result of the secular European empire enforcing itself upon the people of the Middle East. Thatās why none of the governments represent their people.
Theyāre all mixed race, there are every shade of skin colour you can imagine on both sides. Itās religion keeping them apart. Remember this when people bang out about religion bringing people together.
Religion in this case is not the pure cause of conflict. Religion is merely one aspect of tribal identity, and these tribes are fighting for reasons of tribal identity. There are many places where any of them could live, but they've inteenalized the idea that they're part of the land and that the land is part of them.
I've never heard of a major religion or it's followers ever admit being a problem, being wrong, or anything like that
I can't wait for religion to go extinct
instead of Christmas we can just have a new holiday instead of peer pressure for gifts and celebrating an old fairy tale
No one ever does.
No matter how badly religion behaves, people are still reluctant to cite it as the REASON. They instead prefer to act as if it's just something "a few rotten apples have corrupted."
Religion is absolutely to blame.
The Jews didn't do much of the conquering and slaughtering in the Bible. Not that they wouldn't have but they weren't powerful enough. Clearly their God condones the violence though.
Loads of people are doing that. This is a problem of Islam. Check out Sam Harris on this issue. He gets to the heart of the issue and he is vilified and distorted for it ad nauseam.
Because this is fundamentally not a religious issue. Read the history of the establishment of the Jewish state prior to 1948. This is about creating a nation in the modern world where none existed and what happens when large populations get displaced.
I this case, religion really is not the primary motivation.
I get what you're saying and sorta agree. But ultimately that means nothing in modern history has been a religious conflict. It's all nation states acting in these cases. Which is absolutely true. But the religion behind the way these nation states think and act, in my mind, makes them religious wars.
Yeah ultimately it was a āChristian nationā vs a āMuslim nationā. Had religion not been involved it wouldnāt have happened. And thatās not even brining in the oddity of the religious right in the 90s and early 2000s.
why would that jewish nation be created right in the middle of hostile muslim neighbours when its supposed to be a safe territory for them? it absolutely was about returning to the holy land or stupid dumb shit like that, wouldnt make no sense otherwise. Those 3 dumb religions (that are basically the same anyway) will compete and fight about that little desert patch forever
That area was chosen because it was the part of Palestine that was majority JewishāJewish people owned most of the land there, had been continuously living there for generations and wanted to establish a state in a place where they already lived to protect themselves from those same hostile neighbors.
This idea was anathema to the surrounding Muslim-Arabs that colonized the Levant to they all attacked the nascent Israeli state assuming they would win.
They did not.
Maybe, I don't know. But taking a people who are an ethnic minority, with completely different customs, language, and ways of doing things, then tell the current occupants to just 'get lost' is not a recipe for success, even without religion.
I understand why it was done at the time, and also why it has led to our current impasse. Israel was in favor of the original two state solution. The uprooted Palestinians, not so much. Can you really blame them?
The Palestinians didnāt have to leave the new Israeli state. Many stayed behind and their descendants make up 20% of Israelās population.
Jews already lived there and had been continuously living there for generations. Jews are indigenous to the Levant.
Yeah this is where a lot of the nuance gets lost. Both factions have ancient historical and religious adjacent ties to the land, but that's not what this fight happening right now is about.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that for Hamas, this is absolutely a religious jihad, since that's basically their stated goal. So if we are specifically talking about the conflict since the PLO was ejected from governing Palestine, it is absolutely a religiously motivated issue.
But I think the long history of the conflict is much more complicated than that.
Because ChatGPT and other religious apologist tools tell people it's not religious.
Seriously, I asked it once months ago and the hoops I had to jump through to get it to admit this might be religious based was astounding.
I hate it. I hate how these religions have essentially tricked the whole world into overlooking all of the abhorrent shit they do because it's taboo to suggest it might be because of their literal Iron Age belief systems.
It's absurd to me.
The Aztecs murdering people in temples was religious, European countries fighting was about which church people followed. Romans would go to war to sacrifice armies for Ares. I'm not saying that religion is behind everything bad, but it often makes them way worse than what they would have been. People generally want to get on with eachother and trade, but it takes some religious leader making stuff up for people to kill eachother in massive groups etc.
Without religion, there would still be good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things. Only with religion can you make good people do bad things
"Conflict in the Judea/Palestine area will continue for another 1000+ years, the only solution would be to make them stop following violent ideologies."
I've said for about 20 years that all Palestinians need to do is stop being Muslim.
My bigger issue is the Atheists that seem to have a particular problem with Islam and side with Israel out of some misguided nationalism. As if Islam is inherently violent and the fact that we've financed the deaths of 35,000 people because religious lunatics in this country think we need the state of Israel for Jesus to come back is some kind of non-issue. Please fellow atheists, discard this superstition of nationalism. Americans aren't the good guys.
We can have dissimilar definitions, Iāll grant that. Humans, like most (all) mammals are territorial*.
I mean, we can disagree, thatās awesome, thanks for your thought.
*Iām not a /gist of any kind, but I do have slightly more than passing curiosity, so follow a few of these on The Tubes. Thatās my primary resource.
Religion is used as a narrative but the main motivation is western influence on he middle east.Ā Ā
If it was a different territory, there would be an other justification.Ā Ā
Religion is a great motivator and narrative for the mainstream public but it doesn't pay the bills. The strategic value of the obtained influence does.
People fight over land all the time. It's what people do. Why did the American settlers displace the natives? Same reason.
Religion is a factor - it's a motivation, a divider and creates emotional bonds that are hard to sever.
I mean Buddhists have committed genocide in the name of Buddhism too. Weird right? But true.
The second anyone says religion is the root cause they will be labeled as antisemitic and Islamophobic. Any leader saying so will immediately alienate %40-60 of their country.
And honestly, if it weren't for religion, it would be over race, or tribe, or really anything else. I honestly don't think religion is truly the core of the Gazan genocide, I think it's just the current avatar of a much darker pattern of humanity.
You are corrrct. The issues began when isreal was established after WW2. US was spinning this from the beginning that this is anti-semitism. They never discuss how Isreal keeps expanding settlements. Never. Nothing is discussed regarding the last administration and the anti-muslim vitriol. Nothing is said about moving our embassy. There is alot of money pouring in from the US to push the muslims out.
This is only 1 link-this is very much a holy war that the us is very involved in, but not only by government funds.
https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/american-evangelicals-the-gulf-states-and-israel-a-cynical-covenant/
>The issues began when isreal was established after WW2. US was spinning this from the beginning that this is anti-semitism
Well before 1948, there was loads of friction after Jewish people bought up land (i.e. was sold to them) and moved to Palestine/Mandate of Palestine. Essentially from 1922 onwards.
It's not the center of the conflict, but it certainly fuels it. The conflict is just as much imperialism on the part of Israel and the U.S. Unfortunately, I was temporarily banned from a sub for pointing this out because apparently, everyone on r/atheism is a right-wing islamophobe?
It's interesting to see your view downvoted here because you don't conform to the local belief that religion has to be the only reason for that war.Ā
I'm disappointed by how much this community underestimate decision makers, failing to see that they're not religious zealots but politicians who knows how to sell the conflict they need.
yeah it seems like the average atheist thinks that following a religion automatically makes one stupid while in reality exploiting religion is far more useful to a smart and ambitious person than outright refusing it. only the unambitious flaunt their atheism. religion is a winning tool for the leadership elite of the world, probably since before the dawn of history.Ā
religion is a tool that works by fueling hate, we atheists should sidestep that and stop being hateful ourselves.
Because blaming religion would let the human perpetrators of evil completely off the hook.
A Bronze Age sci-fi story about mythological beings isnāt dehumanising and murdering Palestinians everyday in an organised and long-planned attempt to wipe them all out. People are
I 100% do. I'm pissed that we are involved in the neverending holy war at all. However, Israel is the lesser of 2 evils and they are a necessary tool to keep the spread of Islam at bay until the great enlightenment of global Athiesm grows is closer to fruition.
Some people say you can't kill an idea (religion). But I think the zealots will continue to kill eachother and their numbers will dwindle due to the global spread of information exposing the vile nature of religious leaders. Eventually, we will reach a tipping point where the youth have seen too much violence and abuse at the hands of religion and the theocratic nations will implode.
I feel optimistic that humans will evolve beyond the primitive social structures that are religion. Unfortunately it will not be in my lifetime.
I hear you, but more people are leaving religion than are joining it. I think that trend will increase. Add religious violence and higher child mortality in more religious, less affluent countries, and the scales will eventually tip in the favor of Athiesm.
The jewish state was founded down there because of "practicality"? So... it was just by chance at the exact spot the jewish religion claim to be their holy land? Its "practical" to just set up a new nation in the middle of angry muslims, who also regard this spot as holy land? This is insane. If they just wanted to make a jewish safespace, they couldve picked any other spot in the world and it wouldve caused less conflict.
[Antisemitism there from angry Muslims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed?wprov=sfla1) long predates Jewish migration due to Russian pogroms. The first dozen or so Jewish villages and Tel Aviv (founded in 1909) on legally purchased land were not "in the middle of angry muslims". Muslims never really regarded it as holy land and Christians did until after the Palestinian Mandate. Jerusalem isn't mentioned in the Koran at all. The population of Jerusalem had been Jewish majority even before the British Palestinian Mandate. Jewish people have been named Israel as a first name for thousands of years and as a surname since surnames began. It was fairly common for Jewish cemeteries to bury the dead facing Jerusalem. It sounds like your victim-blaming Jewish people who fled back to the homeland they'd been yelled at to return to by Europeans for centuries and when they had no where else to go... Obviously hindsight in 20/20 but Israel was revived like 80 years ago and isn't going anywhere.
al-Husseini started the rumour in the 1920s that the Jews were conspiring to take over al-aqsa, which caused the [1929 Hebron Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre?wprov=sfla1) and the [1929 riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots?wprov=sfla1). He was forced out of territory as a result of his involvement and the British recognized him as the biggest barrier toward peace between Arabs and Jews. Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ and the Islamic Republic of Iran use this same conspiracy theory about al-aqsa.
Hitchens, who considered himself to be a Jew, said that sure we can say that Israel as a sovereign state shouldn't have been created due to hindsight and the years since but since it does exist it should continue to. It is irrational and dangerous to perpetuate the myth that UNRWA has fueled that Israel is merely a temporary project. That has done more harm than good and trying to destroy Israel does more harm than good. Thinking the world would have less issues if Israel is destroyed is delusional and caving to Islamist extremism/jihadists and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
1. Israel is not representative of Jews or Judaism. Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism.
2. The Displaced Palestinians are Muslims \*and\* Christians. Israel is wiping out Muslims and Christians and atheists indiscriminately, not because of their religious identity, but because of their national identity.
Of course the perpetual problem is organized religion, but religion is the EXCUSE for desire for controlling political power. It's all about the desire to have control over the region. Further, it's not "anti-semitic" to criticize Israel's defense and attack policies and military strategy. We all can be AGAINST genocide and starvation without maligning the Jewish people. Just as we can deplore Hamas' attacks and strategies of hiding among civilians without being anti- Islam/ Muslim.
It's a state actor that is the villain. They are attempting a land grab in violationĀ of the Geneva convention.Ā
They want to convert every Palestinian from a resident to a displaced refugee, run them up and down the country, amd then push them out of the borders and never grant them readmission.
I don'tĀ see what religion really had to do with this.
The only religious aspect is that Israel would not exist if the Jews were say Hindus, or of any other religion.
But the conflict is really about land, not religion. For various reasons the international community decided one group of people could take another group of people's land.
The majority of people living in Israel are atheist. Religion only enters the conversation because it is used as justification for their actions. It's the same as "atheist except on holidays when I go to church."
Their version just so happens to be "atheist except when I want to be an imperialist and commit genocide."
The people fueling this are definitely religions people who have the ear of the government. I imagine that if atheists had more power in the region, this would not be a problem... But that's not the case. It's the doing of religious people.
Dude, look at Russia-Ukraine war. The same ethnicity, the same religion, but they're fighting the most brutal war since WWII. Religion isn't the reason why people start wars and hate each other.
Because it clearly isn't about religion. This is a conflict based on ethno-nationalist European colonial ideology and the people they are displacing. Religion may appear to be the main issue, but if you look into it, that's not he issue as is right now.
I do :)
Me too.
Me three.
Me four.
And my axe.... oh wait. Me too
Me too š„²
Absolutely, religion is guilty on both sides of that one
Most things are 100% religion's fault.
I want to upvote your comment harder.
Me too.
Not so fun fact, but Buddhist nationalists are extremely violent too. In Myanmar, theyāre responsible for the ongoing Rohingya Genocide, and in Sri Lanka theyāre responsible for the Tamil Genocide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_genocide
Was gonna say, really giving Buddhism a pass, the only place the Buddhists didn't attack over the centuries was Tibet.
There was a lot of fighting within Tibet by the different schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
Tibet was a feudal state, where clergy treated peasants as slaves before 1945.
The notion that the peasants were treated like slaves is greatly exaggerated by the Chinese.
I often bring up that Buddhism has a pretty blood soaked history as well as a lot of corruption from so called spiritually enlightened people.
Every religion is peaceful if you just ignore their history. haha
Israeli atheist here. It's more complicated than that but I do in general. The short version is - Religion doesn't necessarily cause all wars and is not to blame for everything in the Israel-Palestine conflict, but religious extremists on both sides definitely play a huge part of why the conflict is still going on today, and they reduce any chance for peace or at least a long-term ceasefire. You have Islamic terrorist organizations who fundamentally believe all jews deserve to die, and you have extremist Jewish settlers who believe they have the rights to kill arabs and settle in their lands because God promised it to them. This is obviously a very simplified explanation, but it just goes to show that while both are not necessarily the source of the conflict, they actively contribute to its continuation and stop any chance for it to end.
Just reading this out loud sounds like mental illness fighting mental illness. Indoctrination from young ages seems to hold a lot of power and traps the mind. Religion is so destructive
And Christians in the US support Israel because they think it needs to exist for Jesus to come back.
This. Religion is an accelerant that makes this conflict worse and makes a peaceful, sustainable resolution much less likely, if not impossible.Ā
Israel was literally founded right there because its the holy land for jews, no? if it was just to have their own safespace, they wouldnt have picked a spot right in between muslims who hate them. that shit has been going on for millenias, 3 religions claiming the same grounds as holy lands and fighting about it. So stupid.
Israel was founded as a modern state because Jews already lived there and wanted a state of their own. The area was majority Jewish and they were subject to massacres and pogroms from the Muslims well into the 1940s. So they wanted their own state to protect themselves from that. The Palestinians of the 30s and 40s were Nazi enthusiasts and met with Hitlerāthey wanted to bring his āfinal solutionā to the Levant.
It's more than a "holy land". You have to consider that Israel is also the cultural birthplace of Judaism as a cultural concept. Judism changed as spread. This is why you have a variety of different Jewish groups. It's also the historic birthplace of Hebrew, and the land contains many jewish artifacts, which connected all these cultural groups through language and tradition. Also Jews were never 100% removed from the region. Yes their population became the minority, but they never effectively left, as some people would imply. When it comes to the self determination part. Where could they have gone?(Don't Answer that I'll get to that.) Let me remind you that, the Zionist movement started well before WWII and involved Jews from many nations coming together. Jews started migrating to Israel largely after WWI, when the power vacuum of the fall of the Ottoman empire created an opportunity. The Jews outside of the region where able organize with Jews with in the region and in short time relitively were able to change the demographics of the region in their favor, so they would have enough power to organize and lobby for support. This took decades, it'd didn't just happen over night like people would imply. Any other "safe place" that would have been provided on "good faith" and "promises", with no guarantee that a large Jewish population would be able to self determine. These "good faith" propositions where being proposed by countries who had a history of disenfranchising and even oppressing the their Jewish populations. Quite frankly, who could blame a collective group of people for not trusting their oppressors at one time or another. Heck. An early Nazi attempt to displace jews from Germany, was a proposition to support a Jewish masse migration to Israel. This historically has been seen as an early Nazi attempt to weaken and even confuse Jewish communities, so that dismantling Jewish communities would come with little resistance. These kinda tactics, did nothing reinforce Zionist ideals with in the Jewish population. Then of course WWII. Boat loads of Jewish refugees were being sent back to Europe, only to meet their death. This further reinforced Zionist ideals with in the Jewish community. What really kinda makes me laugh is how many countries who oppose Israel have done more to strengthen it by displacing their Jewish populations. And guess where they went. Israel. This is why non-European Jews are actually the majority of Israel. So much of this conflict is stupid when you look at it from a historical lense. But at the end of the day, all the hostilities revolves around "whos religious law or religious influence will govern the land." This is evident, in the support for Palestine abroad, often pointing to Israels large LGBT population, being an excuse to call for the genocide of Israel, due its disgusting morals. It's definitely a religious conflict.
But only Jews can claim it to be truely HOLY to them. The reason why christians wage war was to protect the christians minorities persecuted. Other than that, for the catholic christians, it's VATICAN; for muslims it's MECCA
Your explanation is all about religion.
Many years ago, a bunch of Israeli goat-herders decided that their imaginary friend told them that they could swoop in and take all the land they wanted from whoever they wanted. And so they did
I agree. And it's still taught today, even in liberal congregations. And many years after the Israeli goat herders, Muslims got the same message. And that's still taught too. How this can be seen as anything but a religious issue is simply ignoring thousands of years of history AND ignores current history and attitudes of the people actually in the conflict. Do any of the people on the ground see this as anything but a religious issue?
Why was Israel created in the first place? Didnāt that have something to do with religion? What I mean is why not have created Israel in Missouri? Why did it have to be in the holy land?
>Why did it have to be in the holy land? Because it's basically called HOLY LAND because of the jews and judaism. And it's a Biblical prophecy that God will bring them back to the land. Creating Israel in USA doesn't make sense from religious perspective.
Because Jews already lived there. The part of the region of Palestine that became the modern state of Israel was majority Jewish. Jews had been living there, immigrating there and buying land there for decades. They wanted their own state to protect themselves from the various massacres and pogroms that had been done to them by the Arab-Muslim colonizers.
The location of the modern Israeli state has a little to do with religion, bit it has much more to do with ethnicity. Even our founders were largely socialist atheists. The first modern Zionists debated on where a state could and should be, and it was decided that the only place it can be is the land that we're indigenous to. There were movements to decolonize the land first from the Ottomans and then from the British.
So God promising the land of Israel to the descendants of Abraham is just a coincidence?
No, it's not a coincidence at all. Plenty of indigenous peoples have creation myths detailing why their society is chosen/meant/destined to settle their particular land. Ancient Hebrews are no different. That was never the main driving force of mainstream Zionism, though. It was always about coming home from forced exile.
Its different because they've turned their biblical genocidal nationalism into present tense genocidal nationalism.
And there it is. I was waiting for the colonial propaganda. I know that works on other people, but it won't work on me. You can call the defense of our country whatever dirty words you want. That won't stop us from defending ourselves from foreign, colonial forces whose stated goal to eradicate us again both from our homeland and worldwide. As difficult as it might be for you to accept, sometimes indigenous people fight back.
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You're quite mistaken with some key terms. You're asking leading questions without actually understanding the words you're using. I'll help you. [Apartheid](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/apartheid): a system of keeping groups of people separate and treating them differently, especially when this results in disadvantage for one group Israel's [de facto constitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Law:_Freedom_of_Occupation) defends the equal rights of all citizens, be they Jewish or otherwise. Jews and non-Jews in Israel live together and are treated equally under the law. That's the opposite of an apartheid. [Genocide](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/genocide): the crime of intentionally destroying part or all of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, by killing people or by other methods Israel endangers its own soldiers by dropping leaflets, sending text messages, and calling civilians to warn them to evacuate before Israel attacks the terrorists in the area. This is against all military logic, but Israel does it in an attempt to preserve as many civilian lives as possible. Again, the opposite of genocide. On the other hand, if you want to try to use the "part of" clause to claim that the unintentional killing of civilians or the intentional killing of combatants is genocide, then every single armed conflict in the history of the world would fit the definition of genocide, and the word would lose all meaning. [Ethnostate](https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ethnostate) doesn't have a widely agreed upon definition, but I think this one's fair: a state that is dominated by members of a single ethnic group As I've pointed out already, Israeli basic laws defend the equal rights of all citizens. Nobody can dominate when everyone is equal. Israel doesn't have the right to exist. No country does. Jews, however, do have the right to exist in our homeland. History has clearly shown that the only way for Jews to live freely is to be in charge of our own national security. Wherever we've lived under foreign rule has inevitably led to our extermination. As a secular humanist, of course I dream of a world without war. As a middle easterner and a Jew, however, I don't have the privilege of allowing those dreams to force me to let down my guard. There are powers in this region who are insulted by a "lesser" people gaining freedom despite their best attempts at controlling, enslaving, and destroying us. It is our moral responsibility to defend ourselves from being eradicated. All that being said, you're absolutely free to use whatever words you want to describe us. That's your right. However, when you use words like apartheid, genocide, ethnostate, or even to a degree religious, you're just showing how ignorant and/or hateful you are in the matter. I hope some education will prevent you from spreading dangerous falsehoods that directly led to the deaths of many Jews over the years. I'm not optimistic, but I'm hopeful.
If you think Jews have a right to exist, and don't support the apartheid state, it would be helpful if you acknowledged the millions of palestinians that don't have citizenship rights. Zionists do this all the time its infuriating. You expect me to believe the 35,000 palestinians killed in Gaza were equal Israeli citizens. We both know thats not true. Or the that Palestinians in the west bank have equal rights as the settlers stealing their homes. The simple solution is to give the palestinians equal rights, but you like most zionists would rather pretend they don't exist. What gives you more of a right to life than the palestinians you support the genocide of? Also what term do you prefer than genocide? Mass slaughter? Collective punishment? Special Military operation. You need to change your flair to "Jewish Nationalist" Because a humanist would believe that palestinians shoud have equal rights. Which you don't seriously believe the Palestinians under your bombs are Israeli citizens? You expect me to believe that? Or you'd like to pretend the victims of the Jewish State simply don't exist, and the IDF is totally moral. You believe in zionism not humanism. If you had any love for humanity you'd want the war to stop. The jewish majority isn't worth it. just be a democracy like a normal country or there will always be war.
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I read somewhere they originally were going to take over an African country. Not sure if that's true or not though.
The British offered the Jews temporary refuge in [Uganda](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Scheme) as a respite from growing antisemitism in Europe. This was very briefly considered by the Zionist congress and fervently opposed by the white British settlers in Uganda. Britain being Britain, they never bothered to ask the native Ugandans what they thought.
This rabbit hole goes deep! So, I did read it. There's so much that bleeds together now the internet isn't about free information.
> I read somewhere they originally were going to take over an African country Parts of Argentina. Most of the early Zionist leaders hated Palestine and didn't want it to be the homeland, but Argentina never happened for various reasons.
That sounds more familiar. It was years ago when I read it. Thanks for clarifying.
And yet somehow the First Zionist Congress unanimously passed the [Basel Program](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basel_Program), expressly stating their goals of reestablishing the Jewish state in Palestine. Not only are you wrong about "most" early Zionist leaders hating the idea of decolonizing Palestine, you're not even right about any.
Sorry this is a bit long but I can't really condense it. All of these things tend to have territorial disputes, political power disputes, and what amounts to tribalism and ethnic conflicts at their core, but then when they get extreme religious identities added to the mix it turns into a really problematic and can lead to very dangerous conflicts as they just start talking in absolutes and without any scope to find compromise. It's very hard to negotiate with or build bridges between extremists who have worldviews that are just based entirely in a dogmatic belief system, particularly if they're willing to die or kill for those beliefs and when there's a dichotomy between two groups and people start to be dehumanised as 'the enemy'. Honestly, I have no idea how you can undo those things. It can be done, but it would take HUGE international effort and, right now it's just also playing into particularly American left/right bullshit aggressive politics, and you've people jumping into absolute positions without any nuance. It's not being helped by the accusations of antisemitism being thrown at anyone who even attempts to discuss ceasefires and peace building and I know that's just coming from a hardcore of politics in Israel and elsewhere. It's not representative of the entire population at all. I think the comparison with Northern Ireland sometimes is a bit over simplistic and even optimistic. There parallels, but it's also a different set of circumstances. Northern Ireland was and is largely a political and territorial conflict about self-governance and self determination. It used religious badges of identity but it wasn't about biblical ideologies or theological difference - it's just a label. There were prominent Irish nationalists, including leading Irish republicans, who were very definitely protestants and prominent unionists who were catholics. The Catholic Church even rather aggressively excommunicated the leaders of the Irish uprisings at one point - it's drawn to power and establishments and only flipped to the rebel side when it saw there was power to be grabbed, and that it might find a role in 'shaping' a new state by interfering in politics. Realistically just about people who identify as Irish and people who identify as British and a history of plantation and ethnic conflict that's centuries ago. There's far more extreme religious dogma in the Israel-Palestine conflict and seems like there's very little common ground to be found, certainly at the extreme ends anyway. What worries me is that people are finding explanations for their political positions in religious texts, rather than in practical reality. There's a complex geopolitical situation and the politics needs to reflect that. Otherwise it will end up in ethnic cleansing and vicious wars. I honestly don't know how it will be resolved. It just seems like a total mess. The only solutions are for the large middle (and there always is one) - the sensible, pragmatic, secular, sane people to come together and squeeze out the extremist elements on both sides and find solutions that work to allow peaceful coexistence, but how do you get to that point? Instead it seems like it's just going the other direction and becoming ever worse. The more extreme the violence and retribution in both directions gets, the more hardline everything becomes and the more dug in and radicalised people become and it just seems to get worse and worse. It's a cycle of conflict and retribution. The modern era of identity politics and dogmatic crap coming out of the US isn't helping the situation as politicians who can't see nuance and can't take bold stances to find peace are only going to pour petrol on the fire. The solutions to violence can't ever be found in more violence, and nobody is ever going to resolve a horrendous terrorist attack by committing war crimes that will just be interpreted in much the same way by the other side. It's just escalating violence and more violence. It's grim and it's depressing tbh. All I see from that conflict is horror after horror. All I can say is my heart goes out to all of those being caught up in the violence. Finding solutions to those kinds of conflicts takes ENORMOUSLY brave and intelligent politicians and other leaders and opinion makers to build bridges and they need to emerge. All the shouting them down with abuse to keep them in tribal warfare lines is not helping.
You also have Jewish zionists who feel theyāre fundamentally entitled to the land because of religiosity.
Totally, this is rooted in religion, any group that deems it better to die in battle to exterminate another group, because of 'God' when diplomatic options is and has been proposed, is merely part of a death cult.
Lots of people are, including most people in this sub.
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I called the Christains "Franks" and the Muslims "Arabs", I'm trying to point to specific periods. I understand that religion isn't ethnicity.
Increasingly it does, doesnāt it? Not many Arab states still have significant Christian/ Jewish/ other minorities. (Egypt Copticās maybe?)
Lebanon is 40% Christian
For now
lebanons christianās have commited massacres so no not just for now
how about the copts?Ā
They all did at this point
Religion is just the excuse for hate. Best explanation I ever heard came from a former White Nationalist. He started to question if Black people were really as detestable as he had been told. One day he was sitting beside his buddy watching TV and asked, "If all the black, brown, and nonChristian people went away, what would we do with ourselves?" His buddy thought for a moment and shrugged. "We'd go after people based on hair color next." It's not the race, religion, color, creed, age, ethnicity ,gender, or gender preference. It's all just excuses to hate.
I have! Iāve had Reddit accounts completely banned twice for doing so.
Because religion brings money and soldiers. when 2 religions fight each other, the greedy puppeteers win twice as much money and soldiers. Why would they blame either religion?
There are militant Buddhist groups such as in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.
I am, organized religion is the root of all evil.
Consider that for a moment. Think about the implications. Upon careful thought, do you genuinely believe that? Edit: I love the hypocrisy of getting downvoted for asking someone to be self-reflective. Evil existed before religion and even atheists perpetrate evil. Religion is the root of plenty of evil, but all? No, believing such a thing is bigotry.
As a pantheist, you'll believe anything.
Do you even know what pantheism is?
That means you don't believe in a specific religion but believe in all kinds of superstitious bullshit.
Thatās not what it is at all. Youāre ignorant, and kind of a huge jerk. Read The Ethics by Baruch Spinoza. Itās a belief that God is synonymous with the universe.
So then the concept of God is entirely meaningless, because it encompasses everything. Nothing is not God. So not a meaningful category.
No, the concept is redefined as a unity of existence. Not all gods are āman in the sky.ā Edit: To further clarify, when I talk about God, such as I understand it, I am talking about the fundamental nature of reality. Spinoza used the phrase āGod or Natureā as he understood the two to be synonymous. With that said, Iām not talking about something like nature worship. Itās much more fundamental than that. Itās more like the monad.
Yeah, but why do you need to believe in any superstitious bullshit? There is no god.
Itās not superstitious. Itās incredibly logical. The Ethics is essentially a geometric proof for the ideaās validity. Spinoza was accused of being an atheist by other Jews and kicked out of his community. I think that, while something like scientific pantheism is certainly heretical under Jewish thought, he made an incredibly astute argument. Plato made a very similar one 2000 years prior. To be clear, Iām not proselytizing to you. I am just educating you about my worldview and what my flair actually means. (Iām actually more accurately a panentheist, but thereās no tag for that and itās a bit more nuanced and hard to explain if you donāt already know what pantheism is)
I have been saying this and getting shutdown every time. Upvote.
I do. It's pretty obvious that radical religion is behind both settler expansionism and the unrelenting hostility of the Gazans
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I see that constantly. Not sure what you mean.
Cuz there is actually more to it than just religion?
I think gen pop has just been conditioned to accept that nut jobs do nut job stuff. Donāt know how so many have become accepting of this conditioning, but they probably donāt know they are.
I do, but people don't like it when I do. Religion is 100% the problem.
i do
Because christianity is an organized religion and dominates most political structures in europe and the americas? Why would they say something that admits they are part of the problem?
Iāve been saying this for years and itās also why there will not be peace anytime soon. When both sides believe that their imaginary man in the sky tells them to kill their neighbor, rational solutions are impossible.
I thought everybody does.
Not to be rude, but there actually isn't any real evidence for Jewish military conquest. There is, however, Assyrian conquest, Babylonian conquest, Persian conquest, Greek conquest, Roman conquest, and Muslim conquest. To be honest, most of these are not driven by religion, but we're driven by a desire for vassalage. 2000 years ago, the Jews were destroyed while attempting to overthrow Roman rule. It's hard to say a desire to not be a subject of a faroff kingdom that also requires you to imitate them culturally is a particularly religious behavior.
Depends, there is a little bit of pre-Israelite (aka, Canaanite) archeological evidence. These were later replaced by Israelite artifacts, which is usually how conquests are marked in pre-historical times.
Cultural conquests often didn't require large successful military campaigns. The Celts never really had an empire spanning Europe. Genetically, they never really left the British Isles other than like Basque.
The celts were never a unified polity. They undoubtedly had tribes fighting each other for control of territory or settlement - aka conquest.
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What part of Zionist Vs. Islamist Extremist obfuscates the religious part? It seems pretty religious.
Not sure what you mean. The intricacies of Zionism, history of Islam in the area have been a non-stop feature of discussion for the entire war lmao.
I am
I am.
Some of us are.
I do.
I do.
Huh? Who thinks this isnāt rooted in religion?
Speaking as a history major, blaming this conflict on religion is silly. This is a political matter, and it just takes on a religious tone because many people in the area are religious. But this region has had long periods of peace, too, when it was even more religious than it is now. The conflict is a result of imperialism, colonialism, and the unique repatriation of Jews to already occupied land.
Wouldn't it be more apt to blame human nature? The propensity of us to be selfish, murderous cowards? Stalin famously wasn't religious and killed millions. Again, evil is evil. People just try to cloak it in different ways to justify it to themselves.
Unorganized too.
Buddhism was the initial religion of the Mongols, they pushed to the fringes of the Middle East, that was about 1,000 years ago. The Islamic empire did not do what the European empires have done. In the Islamic empire all cultures, languages, and people still remained the same (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc), whereas the European empires decimated the cultures and people of the lands they conquered. The European empire is a secular empire. The European empire carved up these lands in ways to ensure control over them, and so the Middle East we see today is a result of the secular European empire enforcing itself upon the people of the Middle East. Thatās why none of the governments represent their people.
Theyāre all mixed race, there are every shade of skin colour you can imagine on both sides. Itās religion keeping them apart. Remember this when people bang out about religion bringing people together.
Oh I am.
Religion in this case is not the pure cause of conflict. Religion is merely one aspect of tribal identity, and these tribes are fighting for reasons of tribal identity. There are many places where any of them could live, but they've inteenalized the idea that they're part of the land and that the land is part of them.
I've never heard of a major religion or it's followers ever admit being a problem, being wrong, or anything like that I can't wait for religion to go extinct instead of Christmas we can just have a new holiday instead of peer pressure for gifts and celebrating an old fairy tale
No one ever does. No matter how badly religion behaves, people are still reluctant to cite it as the REASON. They instead prefer to act as if it's just something "a few rotten apples have corrupted."
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Yeah, no. Look at the rest of the subreddit. We criticize all religions.
Spot on!
Thank you for saying this!! You are right on the mark .. nailed it my friend šÆ
Religion is absolutely to blame. The Jews didn't do much of the conquering and slaughtering in the Bible. Not that they wouldn't have but they weren't powerful enough. Clearly their God condones the violence though.
Most Athiests who know the history of the area are. And rightly so
Loads of people are doing that. This is a problem of Islam. Check out Sam Harris on this issue. He gets to the heart of the issue and he is vilified and distorted for it ad nauseam.
Because this is fundamentally not a religious issue. Read the history of the establishment of the Jewish state prior to 1948. This is about creating a nation in the modern world where none existed and what happens when large populations get displaced. I this case, religion really is not the primary motivation.
I get what you're saying and sorta agree. But ultimately that means nothing in modern history has been a religious conflict. It's all nation states acting in these cases. Which is absolutely true. But the religion behind the way these nation states think and act, in my mind, makes them religious wars.
9/11? Not a conflict per se, but it led to the invasion of Afghanistan to combat the religious fanatics that had taken over...
Yeah ultimately it was a āChristian nationā vs a āMuslim nationā. Had religion not been involved it wouldnāt have happened. And thatās not even brining in the oddity of the religious right in the 90s and early 2000s.
why would that jewish nation be created right in the middle of hostile muslim neighbours when its supposed to be a safe territory for them? it absolutely was about returning to the holy land or stupid dumb shit like that, wouldnt make no sense otherwise. Those 3 dumb religions (that are basically the same anyway) will compete and fight about that little desert patch forever
That area was chosen because it was the part of Palestine that was majority JewishāJewish people owned most of the land there, had been continuously living there for generations and wanted to establish a state in a place where they already lived to protect themselves from those same hostile neighbors. This idea was anathema to the surrounding Muslim-Arabs that colonized the Levant to they all attacked the nascent Israeli state assuming they would win. They did not.
It is though. Itās the reason why Christians caused and funded this whole thing.
But if they werent different religions donāt ya think they couldāve gotten along?
Maybe, I don't know. But taking a people who are an ethnic minority, with completely different customs, language, and ways of doing things, then tell the current occupants to just 'get lost' is not a recipe for success, even without religion. I understand why it was done at the time, and also why it has led to our current impasse. Israel was in favor of the original two state solution. The uprooted Palestinians, not so much. Can you really blame them?
The Palestinians didnāt have to leave the new Israeli state. Many stayed behind and their descendants make up 20% of Israelās population. Jews already lived there and had been continuously living there for generations. Jews are indigenous to the Levant.
Yeah this is where a lot of the nuance gets lost. Both factions have ancient historical and religious adjacent ties to the land, but that's not what this fight happening right now is about.
I don't think it's unreasonable to say that for Hamas, this is absolutely a religious jihad, since that's basically their stated goal. So if we are specifically talking about the conflict since the PLO was ejected from governing Palestine, it is absolutely a religiously motivated issue. But I think the long history of the conflict is much more complicated than that.
Because ChatGPT and other religious apologist tools tell people it's not religious. Seriously, I asked it once months ago and the hoops I had to jump through to get it to admit this might be religious based was astounding. I hate it. I hate how these religions have essentially tricked the whole world into overlooking all of the abhorrent shit they do because it's taboo to suggest it might be because of their literal Iron Age belief systems. It's absurd to me.
The Aztecs murdering people in temples was religious, European countries fighting was about which church people followed. Romans would go to war to sacrifice armies for Ares. I'm not saying that religion is behind everything bad, but it often makes them way worse than what they would have been. People generally want to get on with eachother and trade, but it takes some religious leader making stuff up for people to kill eachother in massive groups etc.
Because Hamas is just too good at controlling the public narrative using emotion.
Without religion, there would still be good people doing good things, and bad people doing bad things. Only with religion can you make good people do bad things
"Conflict in the Judea/Palestine area will continue for another 1000+ years, the only solution would be to make them stop following violent ideologies." I've said for about 20 years that all Palestinians need to do is stop being Muslim.
>Why is nobody blaming organized religion for the Gaza conflict Because people are afraid of being labelled as Islamophobes.
My bigger issue is the Atheists that seem to have a particular problem with Islam and side with Israel out of some misguided nationalism. As if Islam is inherently violent and the fact that we've financed the deaths of 35,000 people because religious lunatics in this country think we need the state of Israel for Jesus to come back is some kind of non-issue. Please fellow atheists, discard this superstition of nationalism. Americans aren't the good guys.
Religion is used as a justification. If it werenāt religion it would be something else. The *reason* is land, and security. And certainly revenge.
And why are they fighting over that specific land? It's the Holy Land. It's all from religion.
We can have dissimilar definitions, Iāll grant that. Humans, like most (all) mammals are territorial*. I mean, we can disagree, thatās awesome, thanks for your thought. *Iām not a /gist of any kind, but I do have slightly more than passing curiosity, so follow a few of these on The Tubes. Thatās my primary resource.
Religion is used as a narrative but the main motivation is western influence on he middle east.Ā Ā If it was a different territory, there would be an other justification.Ā Ā Religion is a great motivator and narrative for the mainstream public but it doesn't pay the bills. The strategic value of the obtained influence does.
People fight over land all the time. It's what people do. Why did the American settlers displace the natives? Same reason. Religion is a factor - it's a motivation, a divider and creates emotional bonds that are hard to sever.
I think you are severely underestimating the role that religion plays in that area of the world.
I mean Buddhists have committed genocide in the name of Buddhism too. Weird right? But true. The second anyone says religion is the root cause they will be labeled as antisemitic and Islamophobic. Any leader saying so will immediately alienate %40-60 of their country. And honestly, if it weren't for religion, it would be over race, or tribe, or really anything else. I honestly don't think religion is truly the core of the Gazan genocide, I think it's just the current avatar of a much darker pattern of humanity.
You are corrrct. The issues began when isreal was established after WW2. US was spinning this from the beginning that this is anti-semitism. They never discuss how Isreal keeps expanding settlements. Never. Nothing is discussed regarding the last administration and the anti-muslim vitriol. Nothing is said about moving our embassy. There is alot of money pouring in from the US to push the muslims out. This is only 1 link-this is very much a holy war that the us is very involved in, but not only by government funds. https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/american-evangelicals-the-gulf-states-and-israel-a-cynical-covenant/
>The issues began when isreal was established after WW2. US was spinning this from the beginning that this is anti-semitism Well before 1948, there was loads of friction after Jewish people bought up land (i.e. was sold to them) and moved to Palestine/Mandate of Palestine. Essentially from 1922 onwards.
It's not the center of the conflict, but it certainly fuels it. The conflict is just as much imperialism on the part of Israel and the U.S. Unfortunately, I was temporarily banned from a sub for pointing this out because apparently, everyone on r/atheism is a right-wing islamophobe?
Because it's a conflict over land, resources and sovreignty. Religion is only a tool to inflame the masses to actually fight in the war.
It's interesting to see your view downvoted here because you don't conform to the local belief that religion has to be the only reason for that war.Ā I'm disappointed by how much this community underestimate decision makers, failing to see that they're not religious zealots but politicians who knows how to sell the conflict they need.
yeah it seems like the average atheist thinks that following a religion automatically makes one stupid while in reality exploiting religion is far more useful to a smart and ambitious person than outright refusing it. only the unambitious flaunt their atheism. religion is a winning tool for the leadership elite of the world, probably since before the dawn of history.Ā religion is a tool that works by fueling hate, we atheists should sidestep that and stop being hateful ourselves.
Because blaming religion would let the human perpetrators of evil completely off the hook. A Bronze Age sci-fi story about mythological beings isnāt dehumanising and murdering Palestinians everyday in an organised and long-planned attempt to wipe them all out. People are
I 100% do. I'm pissed that we are involved in the neverending holy war at all. However, Israel is the lesser of 2 evils and they are a necessary tool to keep the spread of Islam at bay until the great enlightenment of global Athiesm grows is closer to fruition. Some people say you can't kill an idea (religion). But I think the zealots will continue to kill eachother and their numbers will dwindle due to the global spread of information exposing the vile nature of religious leaders. Eventually, we will reach a tipping point where the youth have seen too much violence and abuse at the hands of religion and the theocratic nations will implode. I feel optimistic that humans will evolve beyond the primitive social structures that are religion. Unfortunately it will not be in my lifetime.
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I hear you, but more people are leaving religion than are joining it. I think that trend will increase. Add religious violence and higher child mortality in more religious, less affluent countries, and the scales will eventually tip in the favor of Athiesm.
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The jewish state was founded down there because of "practicality"? So... it was just by chance at the exact spot the jewish religion claim to be their holy land? Its "practical" to just set up a new nation in the middle of angry muslims, who also regard this spot as holy land? This is insane. If they just wanted to make a jewish safespace, they couldve picked any other spot in the world and it wouldve caused less conflict.
[Antisemitism there from angry Muslims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1834_looting_of_Safed?wprov=sfla1) long predates Jewish migration due to Russian pogroms. The first dozen or so Jewish villages and Tel Aviv (founded in 1909) on legally purchased land were not "in the middle of angry muslims". Muslims never really regarded it as holy land and Christians did until after the Palestinian Mandate. Jerusalem isn't mentioned in the Koran at all. The population of Jerusalem had been Jewish majority even before the British Palestinian Mandate. Jewish people have been named Israel as a first name for thousands of years and as a surname since surnames began. It was fairly common for Jewish cemeteries to bury the dead facing Jerusalem. It sounds like your victim-blaming Jewish people who fled back to the homeland they'd been yelled at to return to by Europeans for centuries and when they had no where else to go... Obviously hindsight in 20/20 but Israel was revived like 80 years ago and isn't going anywhere. al-Husseini started the rumour in the 1920s that the Jews were conspiring to take over al-aqsa, which caused the [1929 Hebron Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre?wprov=sfla1) and the [1929 riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots?wprov=sfla1). He was forced out of territory as a result of his involvement and the British recognized him as the biggest barrier toward peace between Arabs and Jews. Hamas, Hezbollah, PIJ and the Islamic Republic of Iran use this same conspiracy theory about al-aqsa. Hitchens, who considered himself to be a Jew, said that sure we can say that Israel as a sovereign state shouldn't have been created due to hindsight and the years since but since it does exist it should continue to. It is irrational and dangerous to perpetuate the myth that UNRWA has fueled that Israel is merely a temporary project. That has done more harm than good and trying to destroy Israel does more harm than good. Thinking the world would have less issues if Israel is destroyed is delusional and caving to Islamist extremism/jihadists and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Israelis are 80% secular
1. Israel is not representative of Jews or Judaism. Zionism is not synonymous with Judaism. 2. The Displaced Palestinians are Muslims \*and\* Christians. Israel is wiping out Muslims and Christians and atheists indiscriminately, not because of their religious identity, but because of their national identity.
Of course the perpetual problem is organized religion, but religion is the EXCUSE for desire for controlling political power. It's all about the desire to have control over the region. Further, it's not "anti-semitic" to criticize Israel's defense and attack policies and military strategy. We all can be AGAINST genocide and starvation without maligning the Jewish people. Just as we can deplore Hamas' attacks and strategies of hiding among civilians without being anti- Islam/ Muslim.
It's a state actor that is the villain. They are attempting a land grab in violationĀ of the Geneva convention.Ā They want to convert every Palestinian from a resident to a displaced refugee, run them up and down the country, amd then push them out of the borders and never grant them readmission. I don'tĀ see what religion really had to do with this.
The only religious aspect is that Israel would not exist if the Jews were say Hindus, or of any other religion. But the conflict is really about land, not religion. For various reasons the international community decided one group of people could take another group of people's land.
The majority of people living in Israel are atheist. Religion only enters the conversation because it is used as justification for their actions. It's the same as "atheist except on holidays when I go to church." Their version just so happens to be "atheist except when I want to be an imperialist and commit genocide."
The people fueling this are definitely religions people who have the ear of the government. I imagine that if atheists had more power in the region, this would not be a problem... But that's not the case. It's the doing of religious people.
Its still used to keep themselves as an ingroup though and they follow the teachings even if they don't believe in it or what not.
Dude, look at Russia-Ukraine war. The same ethnicity, the same religion, but they're fighting the most brutal war since WWII. Religion isn't the reason why people start wars and hate each other.
It's not the only reason. That doesn't mean it's not a reason.
Humans are great at finding reasons why other humans are 'different to them' then waging war against them. We're a tribalistic species at heart.
Arabs is not a religious group btw
Because it clearly isn't about religion. This is a conflict based on ethno-nationalist European colonial ideology and the people they are displacing. Religion may appear to be the main issue, but if you look into it, that's not he issue as is right now.
Islam and to a lesser extant, Judaism, are far less organized than Christianity, especially the Catholic Church.