Sarcastro wrote:About Northern Ireland - yes, Seol, it's a very complicated situation with both political and religious causes. And yes, I'd even agree that it's more a political issue than a religious one. As for what caused what, well, you can go all the way back and say it was ultimately caused by the Pope not granting Henry VIII the divorce he wanted. The religious and political causes are clearly linked, and I think we both agree on this point.
I think it has absoltuly nothing to do with religious causes.
I mean, have you ever heard of an IRA terrorist shooting a Protistent minister because he dosn't believe in transubstantiation? No, of course not, because that's not what the conflict is about. The conflict is basically about two different societies, living inside one country; the differences are culture, ancestory, and questions about political power; religion is a small aspect of that cultrue, but not a major one really. Even if everyone in Northern Ireland converted to Roman Catholicsm, the IRA wouldn't be happy allowing it to remain part of Great Britian, because it's not really a religious conflict.
So in, say, Northern Ireland, what would it be like without religion? Well, there wouldn't be such a huge divide between the pro-English and pro-Irish, for one thing, because those labels, as I touched on with my Reconquista comments, are maintained by the religious differences. The English are Protestant and the Irish are Catholic.
Ok, so if there wasn't religion, people would just talk about "Irish vs. Scotch Irish" or something like that. The labels would be different, but nothing of substance would be.
What I'm trying to point out is that the reason they divide themselves is because of religion. Yes, the political issue is the one that actually matters to most people, but without the religious difference, the political issue would be a lot tamer, because the Irish and English identities would be a lot less clearly defined.
Eh...people will always find a way to differentiate between "us" and "them", between those like us and those unlike us. Language, natioanlism, skin color, ancestory, or religion. If there wasn't religion, I have trouble believing that would make the human race any less tribabistic. In fact, modern religion, such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddism, are some of the first social forces to attempt to trancend tribalism.
My point is simply that the labels and divisions religions create independent of their actual doctrines and philosophies are huge problems. Does it matter that Hezbollah is a Muslim organisation rather than a Christian one? Not in a philosophical sense, no. You could switch Christianity and Islam throughout the world and it would make no real difference overall. So you're right in that sense - Islamic fundamentalists are primarily an expression of political problems, like the fact that people in the Middle East aren't huge fans of Western nations for various reasons. But the fact that religion exists in general is what allows Muslim fundamentalists to exist. It exacerbates pre-existing problems greatly - there would still be problems without it, but the problems we have now could not exist without religion.
The labels and divisions are a problem, certanly, but I don't see any reason to think there would be any less labeling or divisons if it wasn't for religions. We'd just have found some other yardstick to use to figure out who's on our team and who's on the other team.
I want us to win just for Yos' inevitable rant alone. -CrashTextDummie