So it's an anti-religion forum yet nobody ever gave me grief here for being a Unitarian Universalist, which I have been quite open about when the topic of religion comes up. I wonder why that is?

(March 13, 2020 at 12:24 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: So it's an anti-religion forum yet nobody ever gave me grief here for being a Unitarian Universalist, which I have been quite open about when the topic of religion comes up. I wonder why that is?

Have you heard about the U.U. terrorists? They go about burning question marks on people’s lawns.  

Boru

(March 13, 2020 at 12:24 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: So it's an anti-religion forum yet nobody ever gave me grief here for being a Unitarian Universalist, which I have been quite open about when the topic of religion comes up. I wonder why that is?

I guess today's a good day to start...but alas we can't gather the angry mob with their pitchforks and torches since we are supposed to be practicing social distancing.

You get a pass due to plague.

Welcome to the oversimplified interpretation blatantly done to absolve religion.... 

(March 15, 2020 at 6:16 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(March 15, 2020 at 5:25 am)Belacqua Wrote: OK, Hitchens claims that the troubles in Belfast were religious in origin. So do some of the posters here, though they are unwilling to write anything other than pronouncements and insults, and don't make an argument for their claim. I say they are wrong.

The combatants in Belfast took sides along Protestant/Catholic divides. But their quarrels had nothing to do with Protestantism or Catholicism. Their fight was about political issues. 

If anyone were willing to have a conversation about this, there are a number of points I can make in support of this. No fights were had concerning theology. The two sides' members were not divided by religious belief, they were divided along the lines of the traditional dominant religion of the political faction. If one member of the Orangemen, for example, stopped believing in God, he would no longer be a Christian, but he would still be a Protestant, as the political battles labelled him. 

This is from the Wikipedia page on "The Troubles":


As I've been saying, religious labels were useful as an identity and a rallying point, but the fight was not a religious fight. 

This is from the Wikipedia page on the Good Friday Agreement:


All of these issues were political. None was religious. 

Your original claim was that no one in NI was killing people over theological disputes.

Boru

What theological dispute were people being killed over?

If I'm a Catholic and you're a Protestant, and I beat you to death with a rock because you're a Protestant, that's a theological dispute.  If I beat you to death because you're a Loyalist who happens to be a Protestant, that's a political dispute.

Boru

(March 15, 2020 at 6:47 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: If I'm a Catholic and you're a Protestant, and I beat you to death with a rock because you're a Protestant, that's a theological dispute.  If I beat you to death because you're a Loyalist who happens to be a Protestant, that's a political dispute.

Boru

No, it's tribalism. 

Quote:The conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events.[31] It also had an ethnicor sectarian dimension,[32] although it was not a religious conflict.[13][33] 

Theology is a field of study about the nature of God. 

If you beat someone over a disagreement about the presence of Christ in the host, that's a theological dispute.

If you beat someone because he is a member of a religion traditionally associated with the other side in a political dispute, it's a fight rooted in politics.

People in Britain have been known to beat supporters of rival football teams. According to Christopher Hitchens' logic, this is proof that sports are evil.

Because internal Irish politics explain the presence of Czechoslovakian Semtex explosive...

Because internal Irish politics explain the presence of 10,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles delivered by nuclear submarine...

Because internal Irish politics explain terrorist train camps in the People's Socialist Republic of Yemen...

You have no idea what was driving events in NI, or why certain groups wanted to tie large numbers of British troops down in NI instead of West Germany for example. But please feel free to continue with the internal politics line.