"My religion is right and yours is wrong" is the leading cause of war and hate in the world.
Nonsense.
Quite.
Your debating skills are impeccable.
People of different religions coexist quite happily in many circumstances - usually when there is a degree of prosperity.
I'm surprised you bothered to type that weak statement. It's a half truth and doesn't address my point. I could just as easily say the opposite and be as impotently and vaguely semi-factual as you.
I said war and hate. War and hate. Just because 2 religions coexist doesn't mean they can't, one or both, pump out hatred and call it love. Like hating not only other religions but hating other DENOMINATIONS in the same fucking religion. Like fomenting hate for women, gays, blacks, (name your flavour). Like supporting human slavery. Like ordering the death of people who say naughty things or don't follow arbitrary rules. You know, hate.
Religion is just a convenient peg to hang discontent on when there is deprivation. This is why any credible peacebuilding strategy must include economic regeneration and equality (Northern Ireland, South Africa, Israel/Palestine...). Saying that religion is the cause itself is akin to saying skin colour is the cause of war and hate.
Or, religion does cause war and hate but it simply looks like a convenient peg to you. Your strawman efforts with regard to skin colour is ineffective and amateurish. I never said religion was "the" cause, and skin color *is* a cause for hate and war, like it or not.
Here's a recent war over skin color:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/06/mali-war-over-skin-colourReligion is listed as 1st example of irrational causes of war:
"The Reasons for Wars – an Updated Survey"; 2009
Matthew O. Jackson: Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford,
California
www.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/war-overview.pdfReligion was the cause for these wars:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_warIf it tickles your fancy, argue with me that religion isn't the 2nd biggest cause for war and hate beyond resources, as I stated, but trying to argue religion isn't a cause of war and hate only makes you look uneducated. Your deprivation argument doesn't hold up either so you may want to abandon it before I bring up the Holy Roman Empire or perhaps George Bush's Crusade. Oops...
I'm sorry, but your thinking isn't just woolly, it's dangerously lazy.
Jorge has made a few points about this (I'm in the awkward position of agreeing with him about something).
But quoting a Guardian article to support your case - when the article itself acknowledges the
real problem is unfair distribution of resources and oppression?
That just makes you look bad.
