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ICTChris

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Wars do not have single causes. Finding among the causes or motivations of leaders secular or temporal goals does not mean religion did not play a major role in a war, both as a justification and as a motivation for those fighting them. 

The Crusades were explicitly religious, yes there were other motivations, the Roman emperor wanted to regain some territory, various lords sought new lands in the Levant. But for most fighting the early Crusades, it was religious. 

The sack of Constantinople is another that had many causes, but among them was vengeance for the "Massacre of the Latins" which again had many components but among them was the widening religious differences between the Patriarch and Pope. 

But all of that is the usual tit for tat blah blah blah. The real issue here is religion and WW2. While its complex, resources were definitely a\the major motivation but the war was justified and motivated as a war against "Judeo Bolshevism". 

 

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For more than two decades the Jewish Bolshevik regime in Moscow had tried to set fire not merely to Germany but to all of Europe ... The Jewish Bolshevik rulers in Moscow have unswervingly undertaken to force their domination upon us and the other European nations and that is not merely spiritually, but also in terms of military power ... Now the time has come to confront the plot of the Anglo-Saxon Jewish war-mongers and the equally Jewish rulers of the Bolshevik centre in Moscow![36]

Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel gave an order on 12 September 1941 which declared: "the struggle against Bolshevism demands ruthless and energetic, rigorous action above all against the Jews, the main carriers of Bolshevism".[37]

Historian Richard J. Evans wrote that Wehrmacht officers regarded the Russians as "sub-human", and were from the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939 telling their troops the war was caused by "Jewish vermin", explaining to the troops that the war against the Soviet Union was a war to wipe out what were variously described as "Jewish Bolshevik subhumans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "red beast", language clearly intended to produce war crimes by reducing the enemy to something less than human.[38]

Joseph Goebbels published an article in 1942 called "the so-called Russian soul" in which he claimed that Bolshevism was exploiting the Slavs and that the battle of the Soviet Union determined whether Europe would become under complete control by international Jewry.[39]

Nazi propaganda presented Barbarossa as an ideological-racial war between German Nazism and "Judeo-Bolshevism", dehumanising the Soviet enemy as a force of Slavic Untermensch (sub-humans) and "Asiatic" savages engaging in "barbaric Asiatic fighting methods" commanded by evil Jewish commissars whom German troops were to grant no mercy.[40] The vast majority of the Wehrmacht officers and soldiers tended to regard the war in Nazi terms, seeing their Soviet opponents as sub-human.[41]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism#Nazi_Germany

As with all complex events "there is more too it than that". Normally let it pass. But 6 million people were murdered because of their religion, it was widely cited as a cause for the war by the country initiating it. From a UK perspective it was mostly a war about stopping Hitler. We dont really think of it as religious. But from inside the Third Reich, religious bigotry was a keystone of the regime and its long term goals. 

Also WWI had a religious angle to it that still resonates today: the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed V, called the Umma to Jihad (14 November 1914). Outside of the Ottoman Empire most of them ignored him. But again this led indirectly to the Armenian Genocide. Armenians were Christians. Turkish xenophobia (ironically for people who had been in Anatolia far longer than them) also played a major role, again.... complex. 

Religion has played a critical role in our history. Good, bad and utterly fucking horrific. 

Dragging it back to a vague relevance of the topic. Perhaps Religious Education should teach children the roles that each religion has played in justifying wars, genocides, slavery and all the other horrors in the dark underbelly of humanity. (Muhammed ibn Abdullah was a slave owner and a slave trader, though I am not sure this will go down well as something for RE class). 

And before people start going on about Buddhists, they are currently engage in ethnic cleansing and genocide in Myanmar. (This one against Muslims)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

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Myanmar's population is predominantly Buddhist (88–90%), with small minority groups whose members practice other faiths, including a small Muslim minority (4%).[44][43]

The population of the western coastal province of Rakhine State is predominantly Buddhist Rakhine (4% of Myanmar's total population, about 2 million people) while the Rohingya (2% of Myanmar's total population, about 1 million people) are predominantly Muslim. Tensions between Buddhist and Muslim communities have frequently led to violence in Rakhine State, with nationalist Buddhists often targeting Rohingyas.[8] The Rohingya are a distinct ethnicity with their own language and culture, but claim to have a long historical connection to Rakhine State.[44][43]

 

For every single thing I have said someone can say "but this other thing....". Religion has played a role in justifying a large amount of horror and wars. 

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Agreed. Hitler had a psychopathic fixation on a Jewish/leftist conspiracy from his teens. The UK state led by Churchill also engaged in this form of anti Semitism from 1918 through the 1920s.

There was also anti Slavic racial element to Nazism and the Lebensraum policy was about creating an agricultural hinterland with a racial hierarchy akin to the American south where German settlers would reduce Slavs to the status of Black southerners under Jim Crow laws. Slavs were to be economically exploited, denied any political rights and reduced to illiteracy. Jewish populations were to be subject to similar policies to Native Americans amounting to genocide. 

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I think it's really pretty important that religion is taught in schools. Like it or not, the Bible is what people in Scotland have based their concept of morality around for a good thousand years. The church has had a massive influence on society. You only need to read a little bit about Scotland say two hundred years ago to understand how fundamental religion was to daily life.

Not teaching Christianity is like ripping a chapter out of the history textbook.

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5 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

I think it's really pretty important that religion is taught in schools. Like it or not, the Bible is what people in Scotland have based their concept of morality around for a good thousand years. The church has had a massive influence on society. You only need to read a little bit about Scotland say two hundred years ago to understand how fundamental religion was to daily life.

Not teaching Christianity is like ripping a chapter out of the history textbook.

I don't think anyone has a problem with the teaching of religion as a subject - giving equal weight to each religion, explaining customs, tradition and influence on life throughout the world.

I think a lot of folk have a problem with the teaching of one particular religion as fact. Which happens far too often.

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13 minutes ago, Gaz said:

I don't think anyone has a problem with the teaching of religion as a subject - giving equal weight to each religion, explaining customs, tradition and influence on life throughout the world.

I think a lot of folk have a problem with the teaching of one particular religion as fact. Which happens far too often.

There's a fundamental difference between teaching religion for reasons of general awareness, and teaching it for the purpose of indoctrinating the masses.

Using my own work as a case study, I was once on the receiving end of a lot of criticism because I organised an outdoor field course during one of the Islamic holidays, which meant I was effectively excluding people from one particular faith.  In reality, my hands were tied as the time of year I chose was the only one when a sufficient number of hotels were available for a trip that was worked around tide times.  The thing that drew the most criticism however was that I wasn't even aware of it, which had people accusing me of being either ignorant or intolerant of some colleagues' faiths.   I've also had to factor in time to allow those from the Middle East to carry out their prayers at midday and afternoon, which can be somewhat inconvenient if you've not factored in any time for this or wonder why you've lost some of your group who have decided to set up a prayer camp on a golf green. 

Long story short:  a basic education of one of the world's most practised religions can come in quite handy (and save a lot of grief) in even a professional setting. 

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On 30/10/2020 at 21:37, Ralstonite said:

I suppose as a society we need to decide whether or not to enforce blasphemy laws in Scotland, and prosecute people for mocking others' religious beliefs. Personally I've always believed folk are entitled to their own views and will be judged one day for their actions.

By whom will people be judged?

10 hours ago, DiegoDiego said:

The church has had a massive influence on society. 
 

Certainly in Scotland it has, so much so that we segregate our children at school age. Those kids grow up and base their politics on the school they went to and which form of Christianity their parents told them they should believe. It's probably one of the worst things about Scottish society. 

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2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

By whom will people be judged?

Certainly in Scotland it has, so much so that we segregate our children at school age. Those kids grow up and base their politics on the school they went to and which form of Christianity their parents told them they should believe. It's probably one of the worst things about Scottish society. 

Just to clarify, are you referring to contemporary Scotland? I

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On 26/03/2021 at 20:52, Gaz said:

Which Crusade had Sean Connery in it? That one was excellent.

What we really miss with this (understandable and commendable) attempt to diversify Hollywood and ensure that people of colour are often given the opportunity to portray members of their own race is that we don't let ham faced actors with a limited range play a bizarre range of historical figures. I'm thinking John Wayne as Genghis Khan here. 

Maybe we should bring about an exception for this sort of thing so we can see someone like Steven Seagal do a portrayal of Cao Cao or Michael Caine as Xerxes.

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Guest TheJTS98
1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

What we really miss with this (understandable and commendable) attempt to diversify Hollywood and ensure that people of colour are often given the opportunity to portray members of their own race is that we don't let ham faced actors with a limited range play a bizarre range of historical figures. I'm thinking John Wayne as Genghis Khan here. 

Maybe we should bring about an exception for this sort of thing so we can see someone like Steven Seagal do a portrayal of Cao Cao or Michael Caine as Xerxes.

Outrageous when actors pretend to be something they're not.

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