Religion - the accepted way to express hatred?

[infidel666]

I think it's quite different here in Europe, there's more tolerance / acceptance of varying views. It's not such a big issue. From all I've read, you seem to have more fundamentalist 'believers' than we do.

That's because Europe cleverly discovered a couple of new continents and shipped all of its undesirables to foreign shores. That's how Europe purged itself of its "religious nutters." Just crank up the heat and offer them the opportunity to thumb their nose at others and "rule in hell" by hopping on a ship. And that's why America is so "red ant." It was founded by a bunch of crazy fuckers. It's genetic. It's in the blood.

But I don't necessarily agree that religion gets people to hate. It's a sort of chicken and egg phenomenon. I think that, in order to survive and prosper, religion had to appeal to people's predilections. So they validated people's irrational hatred of others, irrational belief that there is something after death, and irrational belief in the supernatural. I think religion is more of a symptom than a disease. The disease is irrational thought process and fear.

[DD_8630]

That's because Europe cleverly discovered a couple of new continents and shipped all of its undesirables to foreign shores. That's how Europe purged itself of its "religious nutters." Just crank up the heat and offer them the opportunity to thumb their nose at others and "rule in hell" by hopping on a ship. And that's why America is so "red ant." It was founded by a bunch of crazy fuckers. It's genetic. It's in the blood.

If my American history serves, it's actually the opposite: people left for the Americas to escape religious persecution. That's why the Founding Fathers of the USA were so against religious influence in politics (First Amendment, Treaty of Tripoli, the various letters written by the Fathers, etc).

[GSARider]

That doesn't explain it all - Australia isn't full of religious fanaticism or a hot bed of crime (given that so many convicts were shipped there).

Also if people are inherently open to irrational hatred, as is implied in your reply, then why are so few Atheists full of the same feelings / predilections?

[leo-rcc]

If my American history serves, it's actually the opposite: people left for the Americas to escape religious persecution. That's why the Founding Fathers of the USA were so against religious influence in politics (First Amendment, Treaty of Tripoli, the various letters written by the Fathers, etc).

You are absolutely correct.

[infidel666]

If my American history serves, it's actually the opposite: people left for the Americas to escape religious persecution. That's why the Founding Fathers of the USA were so against religious influence in politics (First Amendment, Treaty of Tripoli, the various letters written by the Fathers, etc).

You are absolutely correct.

The original colonists were hyper religious, witch burning puritans. They were not the founding fathers. Those guys were over 150 years later, and they were a different breed of rich landowners and intellectual atheists.

[leo-rcc]

I assume you are referring to the Pilgrims at Plymouth rock, in which case you are right. But the original first colony was Jamestown Virginia, which was set up for trade purposes.

[atrasicarius]

Religion seems to be the acceptable face of hatred - whether it's racial, national or just about any other way of describing divisions of people worldwide.

In my own case; being brought up a Muslim, the hatred shown for Christians, Jews, Hindus and indeed other sects of Islam ( in some cases even more vehemently than non-muslims), showed me that the supposed 'peace' message just wasn't the core of the religion.

Now I also have a very good friend who is C of E and having had many discussions with him over the past couple of years...he hates Jews and states quite calmly that they are being punished by God for the killing of Christ...and that's why he hates them. He believes quite smugly) that everyone else, including the Catholics will go to hell.

Another friend who is Hindu tells me that she hates Muslims, she doesn't have a specific reason apart from 'that Hindu & Muslims' have always hated each other...oh and she's quite fond of telling people that Gandhi was killed by a Muslim...which is not true - he was killed by a Hindu extremist...

Why is it that so may religious people feel the need to hate...?

This has to do with why religion is so successful. If you automatically hate people who disagree with you, you're a lot less likely to consider their ideas, so you're a lot less likely to defect to their belief system.