Israel and Gaza

[mr brightside]

What about hate, greed and intolerance?

A lot of it comes from religion. Religious texts are routinely used to justify 'holy wars' and have the participants believing their efforts are righteous. Nations having undergone a scientific revolution casting aside devout religious beliefs tend to participate in conflict less, and let religion enrich their lives peacefully...if they so desire. The Middle East is one massive tinderbox because they have yet to undergo scientific enlightenment; the clerics will not be able to control people with fear and conjecture forever, and there will come a time when the wars will end both in the Middle East and in Africa. My only concern is that this natural progression towards a more complete scientific age will be hijacked by an extinction event or die-off of some kind, rendering the process incomplete.

[MickTor]

People killing people.

[Knightrunner]

A lot of it comes from religion. Religious texts are routinely used to justify 'holy wars' and have the participants believing their efforts are righteous. Nations having undergone a scientific revolution casting aside devout religious beliefs tend to participate in conflict less, and let religion enrich their lives peacefully...if they so desire. The Middle East is one massive tinderbox because they have yet to undergo scientific enlightenment; the clerics will not be able to control people with fear and conjecture forever, and there will come a time when the wars will end both in the Middle East and in Africa. My only concern is that this natural progression towards a more complete scientific age will be hijacked by an extinction event or die-off of some kind, rendering the process incomplete.

Phew, where to start?
Science does not lead to more tolerant, less war-mongering people: evidence - USA, many European countries, any country which has colonised.
People have used anything and everything to justify tyranny, religious texts and beliefs and twisted versions of these are only one misused tool.
Knowledge and power, whether from money, land ownership, language, exploiting others' lack of education or whatever, have always been misused.
Rather than scientific advance, it is opportunity and choice which tend to lead to greater freedom, that's why education and social mobility are so important.
Region and its abuse is not the same as faith and morality, the former are usually twisted versions of the latter.
Branding an entire region - the Middle East, Africa - as war riddled and unenlightened is, well, not very enlightened.
I like your optimism that wars will cease though!

[Deadlegs]

Agreed. Europe managed to start two world wars in the twentieth century without having to rely on religious differences. People will always find a way.

[TheHeathens]

Agreed. Europe managed to start two world wars in the twentieth century without having to rely on religious differences. People will always find a way.

Mein Kampf?

[Wheeze]

Religion is just one form of neurolinguistic programming. NLP will always be used to control power and wealth whether it be religion, geopolitical or just plain old tribal. Its escaping the NLP mindf*ck that leads to freedom.
.

[shaunaneto]

Aye, it's not really fair to blame religion. Religion being used as a justification/motivation is symptomatic of a deeper problem within the human psychological make up, not the cause.

There are enough wars where we have found none-religious reasons for war to know it's not necessary. Religion might be thrown into the mix to help sway the mob, but there's often other reasons too. Did the British throw people into concentration to die by their 10s of thousands in South Africa because of religion, or gold and diamonds? Did the Romans invade Dacia for religion? The proxy conflicts of the Cold War? The list of pathetic justifications for taking someone's life for your own gains is seemingly endless.

For me, I'd suggest root causes are all tied into 'us and them' 'fear and greed' we don't need Religion to make state sanctioned and organised mass murder happen. It comes up a lot as an excuse, but we'd find another reason without it. In the Middle East it'd probably be oil, farm land and water, and spheres of influence.

If as a species we could get it into our thick skulls that there is no us and them, just us, then perhaps we would be a damn sight less violent/tolerant of violence on our (alleged) behalf. Not that I believe the human Ego is really capable of such a thing. We do love to have our own identities.

As for Israel and Gaza, neither side is right. But right now one side is a damn sight more wrong than the other. And it's the one with Fighter jets.

[LissaJous]

Religion is just one form of neurolinguistic programming. NLP will always be used to control power and wealth whether it be religion, geopolitical or just plain old tribal. Its escaping the NLP mindf*ck that leads to freedom.
.

But religion tries to ground an arbitrary set of rules as morals, which is especially distasteful.

[LissaJous]

If as a species we could get it into our thick skulls that there is no us and them, just us, then perhaps we would be a damn sight less violent/tolerant of violence on our (alleged) behalf. Not that I believe the human Ego is really capable of such a thing. We do love to have our own identities.

My favourite (let's make it about football..) is to say, well you could have grown up a Liverpool supporter just as easily as a Man U supporter, it would be precisely the same thing, but the exact team was an accident of birth/upbringing/etc.

[LissaJous]

Some newspaper articles..
Independent: joan-rivers-palestinians-deserve-to-be-dead

And today's Guardian on the language used by different sides in the conflict (ie spin)

this ceasefire "was to take place only in areas where Israel was not engaged in military activity".

Hamas told its supporters, when referring to those killed by Israeli actions, always to use the phrase "an innocent citizen", though some of those killed had actually been fighting or launching rockets at Israeli towns. But the wider metaphysical problem of this language is: who among us is innocent? Of everything?