[noodles]

Originally Posted by Stitch

Examples please. You've totally avoided the question with vague reference and smoke, but you're complete inability to spell the names of countries and religions suggests you really don't have a clue what you are talking about.

I think you two are completely misunderstanding each other.

What Cancer is getting at is the three monotheistic religions originated from the same source, and all the followers of these religions suffer from the same delusions. I agree with this, because I think organized religion is simply a pretty thing to label control of the weak by the powerful.

What Stitch is getting at is that east versus west does not matter, because just like above, the religion, and not the region, is the problem. I agree with this, because I see no difference between a group of extremists trying to affect policy with a bomb strapped to their chest, or a United States Senator in their pocket.

[ukfswmart]

Originally Posted by 999dead666

because jewdisim and christianity islam are from the same region,based on the same one only god.and 3 of them are connected to each others one way or another

What do Christianity and Judaism have to do with this? You don't see them blowing each other up in the name of their respective faith

[noodles]

Originally Posted by ukfswmart

What do Christianity and Judaism have to do with this? You don't see them blowing each other up in the name of their respective faith.

You DO see plenty of Arabic Jews blowing up Palestinians in an ugly ethnic war in Israel, though. I also think Christianity's record speaks for itself, from the atrocities of the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition, through trials and murders of suspected witches in the 1800s, up to the modern agenda of the moral crusade against abortion, homosexuality, scientific progress, and free thought. What do you think would happen if the Mike Huckabees of this country got their way? Changing the Constitution to fall in line with the bible is a monumentally bad idea.

[Naren]

Originally Posted by Stitch

I'm sorry, but how is that not the case with the 'west' too? You seem rather eager to pigeonhole everywhere that isn't America as a religiously extreme. I'd hardly call Japan or Korea religiously extreme.

I don't think he was talking about Japan, China, Korea, Mongolia, and so on. I think he was mainly referring to Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and so on.

Although I do see what he means. It does seem that extremely religious people in the middle East are much more extreme than those of the same religion from Europe or the Americas. Maybe that's because the "west" generally tries to teach compromise and acceptance (for the most part, at least), whereas I don't see that as much in the middle East.

Korea has never really had any extremists and the common Chinese religions (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) pretty much all taught pacifism. Japanese religions (Shintoism and Buddhism) also taugh pacifism. In fact, most of the atrocities caused in Japanese history were caused by people who were very anti-religion. One example would be Oda Nobunaga, a man who many historians hate because he specifically burned down several Buddhist temples, murdered Buddhist priests, and destroyed Buddhist texts.

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Nobunaga waged war even against Buddhists when they armed themselves and did not obey him. The Enryaku-ji monastery on Mt. Hiei, with its sōhei (warrior monks) of the Tendai school who aided anti-nobunaga group by helping Azai-Asakura alliance, was a particular thorn in Nobunaga's side, residing as it did so close to his residence in Kyoto. Nobunaga attacked Enryaku-ji and burnt it to the ground in 1571, even though it had been admired as a significant cultural symbol at the time, and killed between 3,000 and 4,000 men, women and children in the process.

Despite the common beliefs about World War 2 being Shintoist-based, it was not. Japan was under the control of the military who were manipulating the emperor for their own gains (this has happened many times in Japanese history. One time a shogun actually exiled the emperor to a small island off the coast) and manipulated the newspapers to not report about any of the massacres or actions they had committed. Most Japanese believed that Japan was "freeing" Asian countries from the imperialism of the West. There was a fanaticism, but it wasn't religious fanaticism. It was "nationalistic fanaticism," which is why most Japanese who come to the US are shocked by how patriotic Americans are with the national anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, and American flags everywhere - which modern Japanese consider to be very dangerous (using WW2 as an example).

East Asia has, for the most part, been pretty much free of violent religious fanaticism. Religious quests such as the Crusades have never occurred in China, Korea, or Japan - at least in recorded history. You might bring up kung fu as a system of fighting created by Buddhist monks, but it was not created as an offensive art, but instead as a defensive art. Aikido in Japan was created with the purpose of subduing ones opponent without hurting them at all.

[Pauly]

Great post ^