RE: History and the use of religion by political powers
December 30, 2013 at 1:56 pm
(This post was last modified: December 30, 2013 at 2:19 pm by theyear12013.)
Religion can exacerbate war -- or may be a manifestation of the geo-political and geographic reality of power in a given region with a given set of inputs.
Islam's behavior might be explained geographically. It is a powerful land based expansionist ideology well-suited for its geographic area: at one point uniting the arab, persian, indian worlds into a common ideology. Successive empires would pick up the banner and build an empire for their sect and family until the advent of European colonialism by sea. When the Europeans didn't also convert like the Mongols, Persians, and good chunk of Indians before them ... Islam began its slow decline as a useful political tool. Instead ever so slowly the Europeans are converting them ... and hence the intense reaction from some quarters of the Islamic world. The advent of birth control has accelerated the lack of a need for the traditional social model that Islam provided to sustain their societies. Also don't forget ... Israel's existence is prophesied as a sign of the end times in their religion and has stirred up the conspiratorial apocalyptic thinking in a chunk of society in the middle east. Also its just a physical shock to the system since this area was never an independent state -- Syria and Egypt were always united in some kind of configuration. Israel's presence is like a small island continent smashing into an Islamic landmass.
One last point -- Hinduism is not about peace any more than Islam. Please tell the thousands of Muslim human beings who die in riots in India yearly and the untouchable slave caste that Hinduism is some peace loving shit. I've seen the dehumanization of the untouchables up close ... it is worse than slavery. Their subservient look worn like an old coat, their inability to read even numbers ..... India's massive overpopulation might explain the caste based way of thinking but in the modern world ... it is a sick mentality that should go the way of the dinosaurs. Islam is bogus, but there's a reason thousands of low caste Indians convert to it.
Islam's behavior might be explained geographically. It is a powerful land based expansionist ideology well-suited for its geographic area: at one point uniting the arab, persian, indian worlds into a common ideology. Successive empires would pick up the banner and build an empire for their sect and family until the advent of European colonialism by sea. When the Europeans didn't also convert like the Mongols, Persians, and good chunk of Indians before them ... Islam began its slow decline as a useful political tool. Instead ever so slowly the Europeans are converting them ... and hence the intense reaction from some quarters of the Islamic world. The advent of birth control has accelerated the lack of a need for the traditional social model that Islam provided to sustain their societies. Also don't forget ... Israel's existence is prophesied as a sign of the end times in their religion and has stirred up the conspiratorial apocalyptic thinking in a chunk of society in the middle east. Also its just a physical shock to the system since this area was never an independent state -- Syria and Egypt were always united in some kind of configuration. Israel's presence is like a small island continent smashing into an Islamic landmass.
One last point -- Hinduism is not about peace any more than Islam. Please tell the thousands of Muslim human beings who die in riots in India yearly and the untouchable slave caste that Hinduism is some peace loving shit. I've seen the dehumanization of the untouchables up close ... it is worse than slavery. Their subservient look worn like an old coat, their inability to read even numbers ..... India's massive overpopulation might explain the caste based way of thinking but in the modern world ... it is a sick mentality that should go the way of the dinosaurs. Islam is bogus, but there's a reason thousands of low caste Indians convert to it.
