A fascinating question by Saadia Asad
Whatever little I know of history, and keeping in view whatever is happening around the world nowadays, this thought keeps pestering my mind. I would like to share and get any feedback.
WOULD THERE BE ANY LESS KILLINGS, IF THERE WAS NO RELIGION?
If NO, then are murdering, killing and torturing part of human composition?
If YES, do religions in any way promote or justify such acts carried out in their names?
Saadia Asad.
Killing and other crimes are related to struggle for survival. If means are limited, you have to grab some one else’s assets. That some one resists, so you try to overcome and in the process harm the person.
The trend eventually gets out of hand, so reformers and prophets introduce dogma, in the name of God, otherwise people won’t listen to them.
In due course the religion gains the upper hand and its adherents use it to gain advantage.
In the final analysis, religion is only one of the vehicles, though the most powerful, in commission of crimes.
Religion itself does not promote acts of violence. The real problem is religion intermixed with POLITICS, HISTORICAL MISHAPS and PRIDE that promotes violence.
When Islam was made, it was made as one of the Abrahamic faiths, one that would have a set of rules and laws resulting from interfaith dialogue from other faiths to maintain moral principles. It was originally created as a pluralistic, multicultural, multifaceted religion so that Muslims and non-Muslims alike can create a bedrock of human understanding. This is not only the traditional function if ISLAM, but of all religions in general.
However, as time went by, islam morphed into a proper noun, an illusion people believe in to identify themselves in relation to those outside of them. This is not the islam originally intended by the Holy Prophet, but an Islam tainted with human pain–pain that dovetailed to revenge–revenge that sprouted the need for identity, for nationalism, for cult-based pride. If you look at the “Muslim states” today in the Middle East, you can see that they undergo turmoil because their foundations, although claiming to be Islamic, are really not Islamic because politicians who created them had a narrow vision of Islam as a monocultural society. And having a monocultural society kills diversity, collapses differences in opinion and leads to the notion of “us versus them”. To reverse this extremism will be rough, and to reverse this mindset that Islam promotes violence will also be rough. We need to de-capitalize our pride and go back to its foundations and start basing set of rules more on its benefits than it penal codes.
Answers:
Q1, follow the link: http://hhh.gavilan.edu/mturetzky/CausesofWar.htm
Q2: follow the link: http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/TAMU/P09G.htm