For 800 AD years, Jews, Moslems, Christians co-existed with each other

[peacetalksforall]

in Spain. Can we do that again?

From Wiki - more on the net, unless you are already a scholar.

La Convivencia ("the Coexistence") is a term used to describe the situation in Spanish history from about 711 to 1492 – concurrent with the Reconquista ("Reconquest") – when Jews, Muslims, and Catholics in Spain lived in relative peace together within the different kingdoms (during the same time, however, the Christian push to the south into Moorish land was ongoing). The phrase often refers to the interplay of cultural ideas between the three groups, and ideas of religious tolerance.

[ReliantJ]

1. Yes, in a place called

San Francisco!
But seriously, I hope its possible, and can we throw atheists and Hindus in the mix
WOOT WOOT

[BlooInBloo]

3. Exactly what wars do atheists cause?

[ReliantJ]

4. We don't cause any

but people hate us lol

[Lost in CT]

5. Just the World Ones.... nt

[wuushew]

8. Hitler was Catholic, not atheist

I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work... Mein Kampf

[Lost in CT]

25. Pretty thin gruel your hanging your hat on there....

And I suppose Stalin was a catholic as well????

Most modern wars are about power and economics not religion...

And atheists are just as warlike as their religious brethen...

I will never understand the atheist's holier than thou position.

[wuushew]

26. I was correcting your factually incorrect statement about WWI and WWII

no atheist leader or nation started those conflicts.

[tekisui]

28. Wars may be about power and economics, but religious beliefs

are exploited and that is how they are fought. No one says, lets go fight for power. People are lead into killing and dying in wars because of religiousness and nationalistic furor.

[Soylent Brice]

38. atheists... holier than thou...

bwahahahahahah!!!

no really, nice deflection.

[Greyhound]

41. I didn't even know that Stalin started WWII.

:wtf:

It is better to talk to a wall than the deluded on this subject, the wall doesn't talk back and it won't try to kill you afterward.

[Soylent Brice]

42. yes, the wall has better arguments.

and yes, the wall is less apt to arm itself and mount an offensive.

people get touchy when you insinuate religion can make assholes out of most.

[SidneyCarton]

43. I don't think Stalin was an atheist...

I'm pretty sure he thought he was God.

[IntravenousDemilo]

44. Stalin went to an Orthodox seminary.

The experience probably fucked him right up, and that's the most logical and likely reason why he was so against religion that he abolished it when he took over (though he did reinstate the churches after Hitler invaded, mostly because he thought they could be valuable allies against the Nazis).

But while Stalin was anti-religion, it's a bit of a leap to assume that he was a confirmed atheist. Religion and god aren't the same thing.

Anyway, my thesis is that the seminary did such a number on him that it turned him into the monster he became, so yeah, religion is ultimately responsible for Stalin's atrocities.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

30. Give it a rest. Hitler was a Catholic. You already have Stalin to hit us with. Isn't that enough? nt

[cliffordu]

6. Well...sheeit, bloo.....

I NEVER thought of that before. Really.

This joint is better than the community college I went to,

[TexasProgresive]

18. The Red-White Russian revolutin

The Mao's revolution
Pol Pot
and so forth

Since atheists are people they are just as capable of atrocities as any other person. It's in our nature to overpower and to kill - not that everyone gives into it but we are all capable.

My position is that most if not all wars are caused by economic pressures and not ideology - that includes the Crusades in the Near East which was more about opening up trade routes for spices and silks that religion.

[wuushew]

29. Do have have any support that people regardless of belief are equally violent?

Voltaire the Tyrant? Sagan the merciless?

Are philosophers, poets and scientists as prone to violence as other professions? If you have evidence please present it.

[Lost in CT]

34. Mengale the Doctor.... Scientific revolutions in China And Cambodia

Do you really want me to go on????

Are philosophers, poets and scientists as prone to violence as other professions? Well when they have power they often can be can't they.

[wuushew]

35. Those are not studies, please support your supposition

has there ever been a controlled study of a random group of people that shows that religiosity reduces violent behavior? You are the one making the claim.

How do we compare and contrast the atrocities of human history? You cite communist societies yet I can cite religious ones. Which is worse? Can we even agree on the measures of harm?


Let us instead return to the individual.


Perhaps someone should design a control group that shares job function, income and geographic location over 10 or more years.

Do you think that highly religious postal workers will have fewer domestic violence or legal altercations than those who are non-religious or free thinking?



Support your claim or say that you don't know.

[Occam Bandage]

37. There's never been a controlled study suggesting it induces violent behavior

on the societal level, either. I think that when there is no way of determining the effect of a certain variable, and when you can find many examples of the purported effect among societies that exhibit and fail to exhibit the variable, it is fair to claim that there is no reason to believe in a link between the variable and the purported effect.

[Lost in CT]

40. has there ever been a controlled study of a random group of people that shows

that religiosity reduces violence?

No why would you think it would? The real question is why do people assume atheists are not violent and do not start wars.

Honestly some humans are that way and some are not. Whether they abide by a religious or cultural tradition is often irrelevant.

Now that said there are certainly some cultures that are more violent than others.

[Occam Bandage]

36. The Chinese Civil War?

[BlooInBloo]

2. It's stupid enough when people yearn for the good ol days of 1950....

But yearning for the good ol days of 1100 really takes the stupid cake.

[peacetalksforall]

31. Yearn for peace, not good ol days. Take it from wherever you can get it. Meaning...

take examples from wherever you can.

No thanks for your put down.

[elleng]

7. Could only be done

if human nature changes.

Won't Happen.

[barb162]

9. "Relative" peace is important. Dhimmitude existed. n/t

[Withywindle]

10. I really wish people would read more history.

There are quite a few good books on this period.

I wish people would read about the Golden Age of Islamic culture, which coincided with the latter European Dark Ages. Astronomy, mathematics, medicine, architecture, painting, calligraphy, music, literature, trade with Africa and India and the Far East...all these things flourished in the medieval Middle East and Central Asia. Hell, they even took baths, which is more than you can say for Europeans of the time (or for Freepers today).

[Lucky Luciano]

12. yep...but it kinda went downhill from there!

Omar Khayyam is still one of the biggest intellectual heroes in Islamic culture.

[Withywindle]

14. Yup, along with Attar and Rumi and Hafiz and Rabia (oo, a woman) and Yunus Emre and...etc.

There is still great Muslim literature being written.

[bertman]

11. The Crusades did not start until 1086 or so. According to accounts I have read the

Muslim potentates who ruled the "Holy Lands" were open to other religious groups as long as they did not war against them.

If that is true, there was a millenium of relative peace between Christians, Jews and Muslims. Was that because of the Roman Empire's grip on that part of the world?

[Withywindle]

13. Yup, I've read that too.

Also, the "Pax Mongolica," that existed after the Mongol conquests, was pretty brutal -- but it was religiously tolerant. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, animists...all had rights to practice their faith. Genghis Khan was probably illiterate, but he thought books and religious and legal writings had power and respected them. Kubulai Khan loved religious debates and used to send for the smartest thinkers from all religions to his court to come and talk with him. (They were kind of like organized crime associations in a sense - they didn't care about religion or race as long as you didn't interfere with battle or business.)

[RaleighNCDUer]

15. Relative peace is the operational phrase here -

but they were very evenhanded in their little brushfire wars that were on-going throughout the period. One year a Christian prince would ally with a Muslim lord to wage war against another Christian; the next, the alliances would switch around and the Christian and Muslim lords would ally against a different Muslim noble. Muslims hired as mercenaries to Christians, and visa versa, and it was more about who had the money and the land, than their respective religions.

But the Jews were better treated in the Muslim controlled lands than across the border in the Christian realms, and were able to attain very high position in the government as well as business, law, medicine and education.

[mix]

16. not entirely true

these religions from the Muslim perspective were "people of the book," sharing the old testament basically, so there was a degree of tolerance at certain moments...but the christians and muslim kingdoms of iberia never really stopped warring against each other and by the 1400s this had become a war of forced exile and conversion against muslims

[REP]

17. Except for the pogroms against Spanish Jews in 1391...

... and the prohibitions against Jews holding certain high offices, yeah, it was great!

On second thought, let's not do it again. Let's do something better.

[dysfunctional press]

46. and the inquisition starting in 1478. but then again...

NOBODY expects the spanish inquisition.

[a la izquierda]

19. It ebbed and flowed

But the Spaniards who arrived in what became Mexico and the rest of the Spanish speaking world over here learned how to become militaristic based on centuries of conflict with "Moors". They had views on slavery that were somewhat different than those in England (still race-based, but "Spaniards" were more accustomed to side-by-side living with those of African descent) and they possessed a righteousness of Catholic worldview that was downright brutal. Once they gained the upper hand on the Iberian peninsula, they tipped the balance, shoved Muslims out, forced the Jewish population to convert, flee or burn and then brought that warlike mentality across the ocean.
The sword and cross went hand in hand...

[mix]

21. "Moors and Christians"

The link between colonial and Iberian Spain is important: the reconquista wars flowed into those of conquest abroad. The wars against Muslims and Jews, and later "crypto-Jews," reverberated even in the Americas. When the Spanish decided to permanently settle in what would become New Mexico in 1598, leaders of the colony staged a re-enactment of the Christians defeating the Moors to impress the Pueblo Indians. A dramatic display of power meant to cower the non-Christians.

How strange is that?

check out, if you do not know it: Kiva, Cross & Crown: the Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/kcc/index.htm

[a la izquierda]

22. The re-enactments aren't strange at all

I study the indigenous history of the "Americas" for a living. The friars made the indigenous people re-enact the strangest sorts of things, whether or not they understood the "Catholic" meaning behind it. I literally laugh myself senseless at some of the real meanings attributed to Catholic ritual, as practiced by indigenous groups (even to this day).

I haven't heard of the particular book you referenced. Perhaps some summer reading--I'm in the middle of my dissertation...

[mix]

24. strange days indeed

Colonial societies were peculiar for all involved. For the settlers, attempts to recreate their European lives never quite looked right or worked the same. And for indigenous groups, the changes were catastrophic and contrary to most practices, though accommodation to the strange new affairs did happen, as you know, and cultural hybridity resulted.

To return to the topic, I think Cortes even fought against the "Moors" at Ceuta before his later exploits, I can't recall where I found that or maybe it was some other conquistador.

Good luck with the dissertation.

[pampango]

20. Attendance at religious services, but not religious devotion, predicts support for suicide attacks.

http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/02/attendance_at_religious_services_but_not_religious_devotion.php

"Ginges studied a wide variety of religious people from various cultures and faiths - from Palestinian Muslims to Israeli Jews, and from British Protestants to Indian Hindus. Across the board, Ginges found that a person's stance on martyrdom had little to do with their religious devotion or to any particular religious belief. Instead, it was the collective side of religion that affected their stance - those who frequently took part in religious rituals and services, were most likely to support martyrdom."

"Various commentators have suggested that religious devotion makes it easier for people to buy into the ethos of suicide attacks because some religious beliefs denigrate those of other faiths, promise rewards in the afterlife or glorify the notion of martyrdom. According to Ginges, the advocates of this idea, Richard Dawkins among them, tend to bias their attention towards the more violent aspects of religious traditions or texts, in a fairly simplistic way."

"An alternative idea says that the social side of religion is the more powerful influence. During religious rituals such as church or mosque services, large groups of people move or speak as one, invoking a powerful sense of shared identity. By strengthening bonds within a group, these rituals can augment a person's loyalty to that community, often to the exclusion of those outside it. Suicide attacks, which sacrifice a person's life for the sake of the collective cause, could be viewed as the extreme dark side of this cliquey behaviour."

"Together, these four studies - three survey analyses and one experiment - contradict the idea that religious belief and devotion in themselves are the driving force behind the suicide bombing mindset. Nor is this mindset exclusive to Islam, as the third and fourth experiments show. Instead, it seems that the link between religion and suicide attacks is more to do with collective rituals. Ginges's theory is that these rituals strengthen an individual's loyalty to a community, but risk hardening their hearts against outsiders."

[Lost in CT]

23. Actually they do... they co-exist peacefully in the United States and Canada.

To a lesser extent in Western Europe.

[Eryemil]

33. Hardly. If the demographics were more even in numbers there would be chaos

The Muslim and Jewish population in North America is trivial.

Why is Islam becoming such a problem in Europe? Because they are breeding like rabbits.

[Hannah Bell]

47. because certain interests have a stake in fueling division - kinda like you're doing....

[slackmaster]

27. The food was pretty good too

:D

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

32. "Man is the only animal to have found the One True GOD...several of them." Mark Twain

Or, more accurately, "..invented the one true god..several of them."

[derby378]

39. This happened in Jerusalem, too

Under a Muslim caliph, IIRC, before the Crusaders slaughtered everyone in Jerusalem and fucked things up for the next thousand years.

[dysfunctional press]

45. 1492? the spanish inquisition started in 1478...

and i don't think that it was too popular with too many spanish jews.

btw- are AD years different than BC years for some reason...?