So Paris shootings had nothing to do with Religion

[Heddi]

But let's not forget that Pol Pot and Stalin were atheists and killed millions, okay?

To recap:
Religion is not to blame for murders done in the name of religion
religious killers who murder in the name of religion are actually victims.
In addition to being victims, religious killers who murder in the name of religion are actually atheists
and don't forget thst more people died because of atheism than any other cause. Because atheism can be a cause of murder. Religion never is.

[Tobin S.]

1. You seem to have it right.

Religion is just a tool that atheists use to get people to kill other atheists.

[trotsky]

2. One more item for your recap:

People who offend religious killers and then are killed by them are NOT innocent.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Also, people who dislike a supernatural belief system or systems

are Capital B Bigots.

[jeff47]

4. They actually did.

They were about sociopaths trying to gain power. Religion was the tool in this case. Stalin used the same strategy, but obviously used a different tool to bring it about.

Religion is a fantastic tool for manipulating people. But the problem is the manipulators, not the tool they are currently using. Because if you take away that tool, they'll simply grab another.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. It is possible that they may grab another tool,

but that other tool may not work very well. There is a difference in the results from a power hammer and a shoe heel. Religion used as a tool is a very powerful one. And I do believe that these perpetrators believed that they were doing what their religion required of them. Without that religion or those beliefs, they would not have been so outraged.

[jeff47]

6. They're lying. We have no idea what they were actually outraged about.

A little like the born-again preachers who get caught doing what they preach against.

Just because they say it doesn't mean they believe it.

(And religion is a dangerous and powerful tool, but I'd argue it's ability to suppress the downtrodden is more dangerous than its use motivating terrorists)

[Curmudgeoness]

8. We can definitely agree

that just because someone says that they believe something doesn't mean that they really do. I have the suspicion that many religious believers are afraid to admit that it might be a scam to suppress the masses.....which I also agree with.

But I will still hold to my feelings that these fanatics do believe that they are doing God's work.

[jeff47]

9. The ones pulling the triggers do. The ones ordering them to pull the triggers, not so much. (nt)

[Exultant Democracy]

7. I think it is a little simplistic to say the only cause was religion.

The conflict between the west and Islam has a considerable amount of history behind it that has just as much to do with economic exploitation and various atrocities committed against the people in these state due to the influence of western imperialism.

Considering the history of Islam on a balance it would be more far to say that the atrocities of the Europeans caused a malignant form of Islam that had been successfully suppressed for almost a thousand years to finally win main stream acceptance and state sanction in the form of Wahhabism. The shia has also followed the suni down a similar path, facing the same western influences.

So what you have is a people that have been under siege for around three hundred years and the crapsack religion that has evolved to deal with their crapsack lives. If the west had not fucked up the middle east as hard as we have their religion wouldn't suck as much. Explaining it only in religious terms lets the west slide on our culpability in these matters.

[Curmudgeoness]

10. I don't think that anyone is saying that religion is the only cause.

But what we are seeing is a lot of people who refuse to accept that religion had any part in this.

[Exultant Democracy]

13. I see a lot more people who place the onus for this event fully on Islam.

But yes there are people on all sides trying to make arguments that are simplified to the level of absurdity.

[Lordquinton]

11. It wasn't the Europeans who caused harm on Islam 1000 years ago

It was the other way around. Islam came about and swept across Africa and up into Spain and only barely got stopped by the French (Using modern terms for those locales). They waged war against the Eastern Roman Empire for a long time before conquering Constantinople, and the Spanish eventually rose up and drove them out of their lands.

The crusades were trying to take back holy lands that had been conquered (Not trying to excuse them, but if we went and built a grand cathedral on top of Mecca, how do you think people would react?)

[Exultant Democracy]

12. And that has what to do with my post?

My only reference to 1000 years ago is that there were Islamic beliefs very similar to modern wahhabism 1000 years ago. Ibn Hanbal is the best example of that, if Islam had been following the teachings of Ibn Hanbal 1000 years ago and not the far more enlightened mu'tazilite the entire history of the world would have changed.

Anyone who considers the Renaissance a good thing should be very grateful that a civilization interested in the preservation and expansion of knowledge occupied the power vacuum left by the long decaying corpse of the Roman empire.

The crusades were a mission to take bake the holy land according to the propaganda of the church. As with any war believing the propaganda is the best way to mistake what was actually happening. For example if you actually believe the wars were about liberating the holy land then the sacking and burning of christian city of Constantine make absolutely no sense.

The more reasonable explanation for the crusades is that they were for the same reason the hittites attacked the Egyptians and the Ostrogoths attacked Roman. Empires have always had to deal with barbarians because of the wealth they produce. The christian barbarians during the dark age would have attacked the Islamic states one way or another. This is proven by the events in Constantine. When the barbarians, who were only in it for the rape and plunder in the first place, got to the first nice place they had ever seen in their short dirty lives, they raped and burned and stole all they could without regards to the fact that it was a cChristian city, because that is what barbarians do.