This is unironically the case in the muslim world today. Different groups killing each other in the bloodiest ways over the most miniscule differences.
Yup, which is extremely similar to Christians and their “European wars of religion” that had them slaughtering each other for hundreds of years, and more recently “the Troubles” until 1998.
Jews aren’t above it either, though their examples are more biblical and not nearly the same body count. The Samaritans and the schism that turned into Christianity come to mind.
The troubles definitely had religious overtones and justifications, but it was a war about colonial control and cultural repression. You’d be hard pressed to find a British soldier who was fighting to defend protestantism instead of “the empire” or the queen, and you’d be hard pressed to find an IRA member who cared more about Catholic dominance in Ireland than independence.
The wars of religion basically used religion as a cudgel in a fight to dominate Europe and over tensions between the power centers of the Vatican and European royal courts. Entirely political but with religious marketing and pageantry.
Even the Sunni/Shia conflict, most Sunnis and Shias around the world have no issue with each other. Most of the time there’s violence assigned to sectarianism, it’s just like Ireland and Europe, that sectarian divide is inflamed by bad actors instigating artificial tensions and then using them to justify political and economic conquest. ISIS wanted to get rich by snapping up all the oil fields in a largely lawless region. Iran wants regional political dominance and economic control over the straight of hormuz. Israel wants to control the entire Middle East apparently. All of them have religious overtones to the conflict but the religion isn’t the reason for the conflict.
The last real religious wars were the crusades. Europe stood to gain nothing but “God’s favor” by taking back the holy land, it was nothing but a burden to repeatedly invade and fund intermittently occupying. Going back further, Muhammad’s early Muslim conquests are another example of a true “religious war”.
Weren’t the crusades also just a Papal project to reduce the intensity of European wars by dumping excess military capacity into colonising the Middle East?
Partly. The first Crusade had a lot to do with the Seljuks winning at Manizkert, which left the Byzantines needing help from Western Europe to take back their lands. They also wanted to direct knights violence at a common enemy as you said, but from the soldiers and knights to the 4 princes to Peter the hermit and Pope Urban II, all of them truly believed they were religiously called to reclaim the holy land. It’s kind of the opposite of those modern conflicts, it was a religious war with political overtones. The balance of religion and politics as motivating factors is different for each crusade.
Similarly, you could make an argument that Muhammed was motivated in his early conquests by political and territorial ambition, but he and his followers truly believed they were following divine orders. There’s always a mix of the two in those conflicts and it’s a sliding scale.
I mean Hindus are also like this. The amount hatred and violence over being born into different casts is disgusting, though I’m not as familiar with it or other religions. I come from an islamic background
The Thirty Year War was quite a while ago but until fairly recently there was real animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Germany.
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Who is NickSawRickShaw and why is that a message link to him
The Shi’a Sunni sectarianism was helped (at least in Syria) by the US government.
https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/06DAMASCUS5399_a.html
it was a thing for centuries before that
Yes, but the examples in recent history are often instigated. Like salafists wouldn’t have anywhere near the same influence without Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia basically wouldn’t exist without US support.
Saudis are such a can of worms its not even funny
you underestimate Shia/Sunni animosity.
Isn’t it the crusades as well?
this is it!
Shia vs Sunni, Catholic vs Protestant, and so on.
The potential for an explosive event full of horror is always there, because all of the Abrahamic faiths say that only they are magically wise, and the “other” is worthy of death.
That scriptural endorsement has been and always will be fuel for the stupid and violent to do what they are naturally inclined to do. The Bible, Koran, and Tanakh all claim the same thing. “You are granted special magic super brain powers; they are stupid, inferior, and damned”.
So, the “they” always has motivation and even a moral imperative to kill the “other”.
… and to this day, these “faiths” are tax free. they’re all fabulously wealthy, but still, we must pay fealty
“Today”
Late reply, but beautiful!
It took me ~10 seconds to figure out how those banners work. Nice.
I still don’t get it. Look completely identical besides orientation. But both look like duck to me.
The duck’s bill becomes the rabbit’s ears and then the rabbit is looking the other way (and you can’t see its mouth)
Did you just compare my Duck to the heathens Rabbit? BLASPHEMER!
🤦♂️now I see it. Thank you!
It’s this, literally:
TIL. Thanks for the reference!
What do you mean how they work? It’s obviously the banners of the duck god and rabbit god.
All hail the mighty duck god! Death to the rabbit god infidels.
They need to update their banners.
That one is creepy!
What else am I supposed to see besides a lady with a hat?
It’s young lady with a hat facing away and an old lady with a hat facing to the side. Young lady’s ear is old lady’s eye, young lady’s nose is a mole-like bump on old lady’s nose, and so on. Never liked this one personally, the old lady is too much of a stretch for my brain to accept.
Yeah… I’m having a hard time making out the old lady
The young woman’s chin is the old woman’s nose
Ear is eye, Chin is nose, Necklace is mouth
Easier to show this way,
One view: young lady. We see her from the back, looking away from the “camera”, her left ear towards us, wearing a necklace
Other view: old lady. Instead of the left ear, the same point served as the eye, the necklace instead serving as the mouth
An old lady with a hat
This take on it is especially weird to me because I initially saw the young face, but as soon as I saw the old one it became impossible to see the “ear” as anything but an eye.
I can still kinda see the young face but the ear doesn’t compute anymore. it feels wrong.
She’s waering an ear bud
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“Wait, wait… stop… STOP!”
“Now, who’s carrying the DUCK banner, and who’s carrying t’other?”
(insert Monty Python, please)
The guy in the lower side of the image is the one talking.
Fun fact: Allah means God.
More than that: Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in the same god and the same creation story (more or less). Not to mention, different denominations within each religion (e.g. Catholic, Protestant for Christianity). It seems these shared beliefs don’t really contribute to any kind of peace.
I’m trying to get away from my radical atheist days, but monotheism specifically seems to definitively not play well with others.
radical atheist
“hello, have you heard about our savior, ‘just not being an asshole’?”
door slams
“obviously fucking not”
If you don’t think there is such a thing as radical atheism, you might be in a radically atheistic echo chamber. There absolutely is a way to take it too far. For example, thinking that all religions should be abolished forever.
Personally I am also an atheist bordering on radical :D
I’d rather educate religion away than oppress it, but I do think we’d be better off without any kind of supernatural belief. I know that’s a radical, extreme position.
You sound like those radical heliocentrics.
What does it mean to believe in the “same god” if god isn’t real?
Batman isn’t real either, and has had different interpretations over the years, but all Batman fans are fans of the same character regardless of which version of Batman they prefer.
Well, they all accept the book Old Testament as canon, they just disagree on which fan theory correctly continues that story.
It means they all believe in the same god.
Christians and Jewish people that pray in Arabic also pray to Allah. Western Christians really don’t like that.
Classic.
Too true
Pfft, losers. Old Woman God is better than both of these!
Man!
And I’m 37!
Well I can’t just call you “man”
Same shit just different color.
Heathen!
But what about the Great Green Arkleseizure
Ladies and gentlemen! There is no need to fight, come to the white base assembly
