Religion & Violence
So I was reading this interesting article on religion and violence in my Harvard Divinity School magazine. The basic gist of the writer's argument was this:
1. People like to say that religion/religious conflict is the cause of many, many deaths.
2. These same people have a very hard time defining what exactly religion is. For example, if it's a set of beliefs about God or gods, then Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism would have to be left out.
3. In fact, "religious violence" is something of a false category used by Westerners to separate "religious" violence - i.e. irrational, uncivilized and therefore wrong - from "secular" violence - i.e. unfortunate but rational and necessary violence.
Does this mean that no-one has religious motivations for asserting their violence? Or that religious beliefs and practices do not sometimes lead to violent actions? No, of course not. What I am saying, though, is that practically speaking there are a lot more people in the United States willing to kill for their country than they are for their God.
In other words, nationalism is at least as deadly as any other form of belief, and separating "secular" violence from "religious" violence is really a strategy for letting Western countries off the hook for their violence.
This is the article, by the way: I've linked to the issue & the cover - the article itself isn't online.
Does Religion Cause Violence? by William T. Cavanaugh
7 comments:
This is the argument offered up by many atheists and others who hate religion for whatever reason. Truth is, atheism has killed MILLIONS more.
Hitler, Stalin and Mao just to name a few.
Right, exactly. But the point is that this argument the other side of the coin to the argument that violence by Muslims is somehow different than American violence.
Well, I do think it is.
I had a nice long post typed up here about Muslim violence but decided it got too off-topic.
If you're trying to make the case that religious violence isn't as bad as violence inspired by nationalism...I agree. But using the Muslim religion as an example to make your point is a poor choice.
You make the point: there are a lot more people in the United States willing to kill for their country than they are for their God.
I think that's a fair point. However, one that doesn't ring true in the middle east and other Muslim dominated regions. I feel they are much more willing to kill for Islam than for their own corrupt regimes.
Wait -- I wasn't saying that religious violence isn't as bad as violence motivated by nationalism. They're both bad.
I'm just saying that Westerners use the argument that "secular, rational" violence is somehow not as bad as "religious, irrational" violence as a way of minimizing the damage that we're doing with our violence.
"I think that's a fair point. However, one that doesn't ring true in the middle east and other Muslim dominated regions. I feel they are much more willing to kill for Islam than for their own corrupt regimes."
Right - this set of justifications applies to the West. It seems entirely likely that the people committing violence in the name of Islam have a different set of justifications for violence all their own.
Let's not forget how many people were killed in the name of Christianity.
I think to people like me (a non-religious person), killing in the name of religion is worse than "secular" violance because the people killing in the name of religion are missing the point of their own religion.
Killing just to kill, or in the name of a country is different than killing in the name of a God who is supposed to be good/forgiving etc. and who normally does not condone killing.
d -
Well, how many people have been killed in the name of Christianity?
In the 20th century, a lot more have died for political reasons. Think about, say, Stalin's starvation of 20 million farmers in the Ukraine, or the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust (not to mention gypsys, gays, and others)? How many people died in the killing fields of Cambodia, or in China's Cultural Revolution? Hundreds of thousands died in Rwanda.
If I remember right, none of these people were killed out of religious motivation. (Unless you count being killed for being Jewish as religious motivation)
I'm not trying to say that Christianity hasn't been used to justify violence. What I'm saying is that making "religious" violence somehow worse than secular violence is an excuse we in the West use to keep from seeing the real impact of our violence on other people. It is a way to dodge responsibility.
A death is a death, whether in the name of democracy or the name of Allah.
I understand your point about it being more upsetting to have someone twist a religion into a shape such that it reverses the original meaning. Sort of salt on the wound. But doesn't it also seem a little scary to think about killing simply for the sake of killing? What could ever put a stop to that, once people had started?
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