If religion were to disappear overnight, would war evaporate, too?

Jes and Muslims are semitic, but I don't think the Protestants of Ireland would ever consider themselves Celtic (they identify with an Anglo-Scottish culture which doesn't exist).

maybe we'd just have discovered something else to use as a support system for slaying folks

So I guess my answer is no.

so i say no.

a terrorist with a knife grabs a man walking down the street, pulls him into an alcove, and holds the knife to his throat. "are you protestant or catholic?" he demands.

"well... i'm athiest!" says the man

"yes, but are you a protestant athiest or a catholic athiest?"

(i think that sort of sentiment is probably true in many countries these days)

Enrique, it's interesting that you brought up that Irish Protestants "identify with an Anglo-Scottish culture that doesn't exist". It's the Scottish link which makes them "ethnically" more similar to the Irish. They were Border Scots who were deported to Northern Ireland after the Act of Union. Several thousand years ago, Ireland and Scotland were both settled by the Goedelic (sp?) Celts, and faced similar invasion/settlement patterns by Vikings and English. They may have been the same racial/ethnic group a long time ago, but on a similar historic scale as the cultural split in the Semetic peoples.

(I hate using the term "race" or "ethnic" or things like that. It makes me so uncomfortable because blah blah, there is only one race, the human race, etc. etc. and it has all those loaded overtones. I'd prefer to use something like "breed" because we can, after all, like horses and dogs and other animals, we can interbreed. Plus I'd hope it points out the superficiality of the physical differences.)

But anyway, my point being that Irish and Scots-Irish are technically the same "breed" (Gaelic Celt with 30% added extra Viking) separated by vastly different cultures, and therefore warring along "religious" lines.

Anyway, I don't want to get bogged down in discussions of race. I'm interested in the interaction of culture and religion.

So far it looks like most people agree that human beings will find an excuse to slaughter each other (for territorial or political or whatever reasons) even if they have no reason to bring a god-concept into it. So why *DO* people feel the need to bring their god-concept into it?

Is religion just a kind of symbolic shorthand for culture? Is it a non-rational and emotional justification for non-rational and emotional acts? Is it an easy and cynical method of control, an emotional flashpoint? Or do people actually deeply, seriously believe in their own religious rhetoric?

What about concepts which have become almost religious in their power, without even evoking an actual god? A god-concept without a deity, kind of like Americans and their flag-clutching and their irrational belief in the concept of "Freedom" held so deeply that they are prepared to sacrifice their own freedom, not to mention others' lives, to propegate this concept?

Why bother bringing god into it at all? To me, that seems to cheapen or invalidate religion, and the things I find good about it. And makes for easy potshots by hardline atheists.

Well, this is what I'm trying to get at. I admit it's a chicken and the egg situation. Catholicism and Feudalism are very much linked, with their insistence upon authority and hierarchy. Protestantism and Capitalism are very much linked, with their insistence upon self reliance and self determination.

I suppose it's not really important to know which way the causality flows, rather that the correlation is what is important, and that the resulting conflict between the two would be as political/economic as it would be religious.

The culture drove the religion - the religion wouldn't have been so powerful had it not reflected the political/economic changes in Northern Europe. And the religion drives the culture. (The ultimate example taken to its illogical conclusion is the US - the Protestant Work Ethic gone horribly awry. "We must be god's chosen people, because we are so successful, even if we used horribly unethical and even sinful means to become so successful.")

To the person in the grip of a religion, and involved in a "religious" conflict, I would suppose that it would seem like religion was driving, and justifying the culture. And a hardline smug atheist is likewise unable to see it as anything except the culture creating the religion.

(HSA is going to kill me for his phone bill when he comes back. I will blame his atheism, of course, for the violence.)

I mean just because the perception is that catholics were encouraged to have children don't think that sex wasn't a total taboo traditionally. Still is to some extent.

Ronan -- possibly today, but back then what protestant religion 'meant' effectively was the end of festivities, sports, ales, etc, which made up the bulk of popular culture in rural England. Hence the fun-hating rep.

It is rather fine, yes.

Oh, too much sherry again, I'm having trouble forming sentences.

-- Kate In A Serious Moment (masonicboom@xxxxx), February 26th, 2004. (kate) (later)

It's funny how once a certain fact has been used for long enough people feel they can dismiss it with a "blah blah blah" simply because it's been used for so long, as if that somehow makes it less true.

I don't particularly rely on the war argument when trying to explain why theism/spiritual bullshit is such a dumb idea, but while I certainly consider myself rational enough to be above "Religion", I don't think many anti-theists/anti-spiritual bullshitists would claim to be above human behaviour. That wouldn't make a lick of sense, as they say.

No i disagree, and i have thought about this to my satisfaction. Dogma = rules. Rules are to be found in other disciplines too, particularly the sciences, thus betraying the source of all codes designed to guide behaviour: the human mind. Humans recognize their self-destructive capabilities and mutually collude to invent rules to live and prevent wars which would wipe out the species if based purely on rampant desire and primal urges. Hence the need for commonly agreed 'excuses'/reasons to go to war. I happen to believe that religion (in it's true form)is a tool for mankind too access its 'higher self' (NOT CONTROVERSIAL PEOPLE DON'T GET KNICKERS IN A TWIST). (I suppose this would be like saying psuedo-science is not science). Thre moment religion is used 'in sin' (ie to go against the fundamental tenets of true religion, see Aldous Huxley's 'The Perennial Philosophy' to see where i'm coming from) it is no longer present, it is the existensial barrage of loss, uncertainty, intense sickness at life expressing itself, which it must do, but momentarilt without the extraordinary spark of reason that religion (can) provide(s). War represents this failure on a catastrophic scale. (True) religion is the essence of compromise. Just check the Huxley if you've forgotten what religion actually stands for. You won't find anything that could, in a million years, engender a conflict. There are too many holes for love for life in yourself and others to escape.
As for the idea that this 'ethos' opposes rationality; well read Gandhi's quotes on that, he's right as usual. I'll try and dig them out.

I'd like to ask everybody about their opinion on the supposed inevitability of war. It seems to be a popular belief on this thread. Pete, earlier you said something like that there need to be commonly agreed upon excuses/reasons to go to war in order for there not to arise wars based on "rampant desire and primal urges" that would wipe out the entire species. That's interesting; does it mean that you advocate wars as they presently tend to occur? Does everyone else agree with that? If not, how do you evaluate war's inevitibility? Is it just an "unfortunate" phenomenon that we will always have to live (or die, as the case may be) with forever? If the ways in which religion engenders war are okay because there would always be other reasons to start wars does this mean we should cease to work against other causes of war too?

"Faith... must be enforced by reason... when faith becomes blind it dies."

"Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is."

I will not continue this debate on this thread as it will only derail it into bitchy metafuckery, which I really, really detest. I also don't want to derail your thread. However, in the future, do not ever fucking tell me what to say or when to say it.

Was anyone really arguing the opposite, Dan? If you read the thread I think Kate makes it pretty clear from the beginning that she recognizes how simple-minded that formulation is.

Is anyone fixin' to watch the Barhnoffer thing on PBS this week?
http://www.pbs.org/bonhoeffer/index.html

A very interesting life story - I'm very interested to see what they say about him, but also very interested to know what the religious and anti-religious think about Barnhoffer's thoughts on religion.