Religion, Dogma, & Violence

Conflict, militant resistance, crime, and revolution, all of these terms do share something initial in their cores "Violence", though there is ideological differences between each and another, but general speaking they all evolve around violence.

Every conflict, act of war, clash in human history can be traced back to dogma, or irrationality of one kind or another. And here we are speaking about dogmas in general as an established belief or doctrine held by religion or ideology or any kind of organization.


The major dogmas causing the major wars or conflicts in human history are nationalism, religion, and racism. Human conflicts evolve mostly around one of these roots of evil, though wars in the 20th century are most about nationalism, but even those wars declared as national liberation or non-religious wars are most likely to be fueled by religion, religion is a part of nationalism after all. Wasn t it the case in the Balkans ? where the Serb Orthodox nationalism massacred Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians. Isn t it the case of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict ? 60 years old political conflict, but also fueled by the Jewish and Islamist fundamentalism. The Irish protestants and Catholics. “We all remember how many religious wars were fought for a religion of love and gentleness; how many bodies were burned alive with the genuinely kind intention of saving souls from the eternal fire of hell” Karl Popper

As an Atheist with an Islamic background, I am not trying to defend Islam, rather I m trying to show that the relation between Islam and violence is just the natural result of dogma which is a natural feature of every religion, turning human beings in to cannibals. The Islamic wars, the crusades, the thirty years war, the endless European religious wars. I believe that fundamentalism and violence aren t exclusive feature of a nation or a religion, they are general aspects of dogma, they were and will always be as long as people believe in religions, doctrines , or even stones. “When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow.” Anais Nin

In his "Root Of All Evil" Richard Dawkins stated that "The suicide bomber is convinced that in killing for his God, he will be fast-tracked to a special martyrs heaven. This isn t just a problem of Islam. It is common to Judaism and Christianity as well the process of nonthinking called faith."
In 2002 an Indian Hindu nationalist leader called Bal Thackeray called to form Hindu suicide squads to take Muslims head on. He stated "kick out the four crore [40 million] Bangladeshi Muslims and then the country will be secure,". "Thackeray for Hindu suicide squads". Times of India. Retrieved 2007-08-25. . Source : Wikipedia Suicide Attack.

He maintained that only "our religion [Hinduism] is to be honored here" and then "we will look after other religions""India: The politics of passion". Asia Times. Retrieved 2007-08-25. Source : Wikipedia Suicide Attack

But what is it that makes religion function that way? A call for tolerance as all religions theoretically claim, end up being a clear call for murder, hate, and slaughter. It is that religion unconsciously creates some kind of categories, We Vs. Them.
We are righteous they are sinful, they worship the wrong god, they are against our values, they are backward.

Once religion creates this dogmatic feeling, it starts producing violence, starting with denying the other, then dehumanize the other, and it finally reaches the limit at which religious dogma cancels the other completely using a gun, a bomb, etc.. It is what made Richard Burton state: “The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”

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