Why The Divisions Between Religions?, Why?

Why is there antagonism between different religions?

Take Christianity and Islam.

They both believe in one God.

Take Hinduism. Seemingly polytheistic, yet they also believe in one supreme.

Allah. Brahman. Yahweh. Whatever named, one supreme.

I don't get it. They all seem to be the same thing...

Divisions between religions come when one religion starts saying that their god is better than the othes' gods. As all monotheists do.

Yeah, most major religions have very similar basic values. It's because those are values that are nescessary to make humans in large numbers in one place able to tolerate each other, and supress their nature, whcih is that of fiercely territorial and agresive, pack-based animals.

However, ever since religion cme into beingm, there have been those who have utilised it to justify conquest, murder, or supression of others. It's soemthing that continues to this day. And something that will alwways be there so long as there are humans.

Heh, actually the worst rifts of all are between people of the same faith. Take Sunni and Shiite Muslims, for example.

.... or between Prostestants and catholics. In Bautzen, a town in Saxony, the cathedral is catually split in two by a wall - which was built when the city's population, about evenly divided into catholics and protestants, decided to split the cathedral too. They did agree to this though, and in a time where religious warfare was rampant in Central europe this was as progressive as it possibly could have been.

The way I see it, the reason for these scisms and the wars and slaughter they always seem to bring with them is a result of monotheist faiths' belief in having the absolute, one and only truth™ with their beliefs, and everyone else is wrong, stupid and heathen (and worth as much as vermin). Polytheist faiths - while in no way wnders of tolerance - have a much less hard time, since they're basically many cults in one already, and neither Jupiter's not Neptune's or Mercury's disciples are in posession of truth™.

Now, I KNOW polytheist faiths aren't the ultimate in tolerance, but there're hardly any instances of these faiths undergoing such drastic scisms as all monotheist faiths (Judaism split into today's Jews and Christians, and these split into the Catholics' "World Church" and several Protestant sects; Islam split into Sunnis and Shites, and Shiites split into tosday's Shiites and Ismaelites ...). They're generally also more tolerant of completely foreign faiths.

A thought.
In many parts of Europe, the majority of people are not religious and even those who are are religious don't want to fight about it.
But it seems that there is a group who are willing to fight about...football!
And another group that wants to fight anybody whose face, language or skin looks different. (In the Balkan area, except for Islam, people aren't devoutly religious. That didn't prevent large-scale massacres in the 1990s! Or husbands and wives of different ethnic groups divorcing and fighting on opposite sides...sometimes without even divorcing...)
So I wonder: if, as John Lennon dreamed, there were no religions, no heaven and no hell to believe in, would there be universal peace?
Or have there and will there always be the bigoted, the murderous, the ant-social among us, and are they not simply using religion as an excuse for their tendencies?

Oh come on. Hooliganism isn't quite a mass movement (and besides, there's hooliganism in the states too, though it's not tied to sports events but university parties).

And the people of the Balkans aren't religious?Beg your pardon? The Serrbian Orthodox Church played a very unfortunate part under Milosevic, claiming being the one and only TRUE faith and all, and Serbs generally are pretty religious by European standards. Besides, other factors - nationalism, the idea of revenge and feuds dating back to Ottoman times - played a great role in the Balkan wars too.

Surely not. People would still be agressive, divisive, and squarreling, The world would just lack bigotry, as can be seen in the US where "pro-lifers" almost always support the death sentence - and the man proclaiming a new "culture of life" has only one thing to say about the death of tens of thousands of civilians at the hands of his armed forces - "stuff happens".

There will never be universal peace, but with "no religion, no heaven and hell", there would at least be one major reason to kill one another less. Actually, for every religion to give up the claim to be the one and only truth™ would suffice.

Really, Hermit, you should get your facts straight.
According to regular surveys from 1998 till date, only about 35% of Serbs go to church more often than once a month.
And the number of observant, pious Roman Catholics among the Croats is even less.
Plus the fact that I have travelled in Bosnia, and every single Bosnian Muslim I met ate pork and drank rakia...
You should read the witty American satirist P.J. O'Rourke, who has written a description of the Yugo Civil War by saying "The Serbs hate the Croats because they don't eat fish on Friday and the Croats hate the Serbs because they don't even remember when the Orthodox New year is..."
Yup, wars in the names of religions have killed millions.
They're News.
Religious charities of all denominations have donated trillions ...sent medical missions to the remote parts of the world...educated...even started political movements (quick quiz: which group agitated to end FORMAL slavery [and Hermit, please note my adjectives!] in the period 1830-70??).
But that's not news...

And regarding bigotry...have you seen my posts in the other forum on a group known, justly or unjustly, by the sobriquet "feminazis"?
Let me hear your comments, if any, on them...

1. Feminazis.
Of course, there're radical feminists. I know some myself. However, lobbing away at (of course, lesbian) radical feminists, like you have been doing in the abortion thread over at the Drawbridge.
Me, I don't like any radicals. There're not many of that kind over here, luckily; our feminists are more practical and usually do wear makeup too.
What you mentioned int hat thread showexd you to be quite bigot too, though. Why no word about men pressuring women to abort their baby because it could screw with THEIR career plans? Or just because they don't want a kid? Hunh? But that's seriously off topic.

2.

I wasn't saying they're religious fanatics or even just as fundamentalist as most Americans are, but the fact that religious differences played a MAJOR role in Milosevic's reasoning about the wars remains.

That could be said of one of the 9-11 terrorists too. Doesn't change anything about the fact he died in an act of religious-based terrorism, as a suicide assassin.

People may not live their faith by the book, but still take it seriously enough to go and kill others on behalf of them being 'evil'.

3.

I don't know their name, but it was a religious group who, having reat the bible, concluded that Christ actually DID say that slavery was bad. And the bible's ruling on slavery being bad was so strict, it even applied to them Niggers. Didn't, of course, end informal slavery, or the apartheid that evolved out of it later on, or the still quite widespread prejudices and arrogance on part of white Americans against them.

On that note, my US folks disinherited one of their daughters because she was dating a Black man. Just so that you don't tell me I cannot tell you of any examples.

And, of course, religius charities.

US religious charities donate billions to educating Africans that condoms won't help against AIDS. In my book, that's nothing short of genocide. Yes, religious charities do a lot of good. Like US missionaries who do their best to destroy indigenous cultures and spread the word of Christ so the final days may come sooner. I certainly see much good in that. But, of course, that's no news in Bush's US.

Also, muslim religious charities were the main sponsor of people who did great things, such as 9-11. And are the main fund raisers for heroic groups that promote goodness and world peace like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who do all in their power to promote understanding and peace in teh Middle East. They educate young Palestinians too, for free, about things such as the protocols of the Wisem Men of Zion, why the Holocaust never happened and how to make explosives from easily available household items.

Goodness whereever I look with charities. Yes, religious charities spend billions, but if even half of that goes to actually genuinely charitable work with no second thoughts, I'd be quite surprised. They're a mixed blessing at best.