From article:

To kill a single human being violates the principles of every single religion, including Islam. Terrorism is an unreligious act. Muslims have repeatedly disowned the terrorists, but this is rarely reported in the Western media. Terror is a political act, which may use (or abuse) the language of religion, but it absorbs some of the nihilistic violence of modernity, which has created self-destructive nuclear weapons and still threatens to use them today. An important survey showed that every single suicide bombing since the 1980s was politically rather than religiously motivated: the main grievance was the occupation by the West and its allies of Muslim lands.

When...

From article:

To kill a single human being violates the principles of every single religion, including Islam. Terrorism is an unreligious act. Muslims have repeatedly disowned the terrorists, but this is rarely reported in the Western media. Terror is a political act, which may use (or abuse) the language of religion, but it absorbs some of the nihilistic violence of modernity, which has created self-destructive nuclear weapons and still threatens to use them today. An important survey showed that every single suicide bombing since the 1980s was politically rather than religiously motivated: the main grievance was the occupation by the West and its allies of Muslim lands.

When advocate some act of violence corrupted politics and warmongers can take whatever »-ism« they want and distort a convenient part of it for their mean purposes. Religions are often convenient for those purposes because they are widely spread and peoples are – because of their attachments and personal problems – often oversensitive in respect of their believing.

Just keep in mind that what one believe on the base of some »-ism« (for example some religion) is one's interpretation of that »-ism«, first of all. And this can be fertile ground for mean manipulations as well as for positive and noble outcomes, too.

What you (want to) believe about religions generally is also your personal interpretation first of all. If your basic purpose is to attack religions, you will always easily find something out there you can criticize and condemn; as you can - if you wish - always find really positive and noble aspects, which serves for universal benefits.

In fact: religions, as all other “-isms”, are collections of human choices and interpretations above all.

Bible
Exodus 22:20
He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

Genesis 35:5
The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them.

Exodus 23:27
I will send my fear before thee.

Deuteronomy 2:25
This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.

Deuteronomy 4:34
... by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors....

Judges 16:27-30
Now the house was full of men and women ... about three thousand men and women.... And Sams...

Bible
Exodus 22:20
He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the LORD only, he shall be utterly destroyed.

Genesis 35:5
The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them.

Exodus 23:27
I will send my fear before thee.

Deuteronomy 2:25
This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.

Deuteronomy 4:34
... by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, and by great terrors....

Judges 16:27-30
Now the house was full of men and women ... about three thousand men and women.... And Samson called unto the LORD, and said ... strengthen me ... that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines.... And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood..... And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Koran
* 3:151 "We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve."

4:74 "Fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward."

* 4:76 "Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the minions of the devil."

* 4:91 "Take them and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant."

* 8:12 "I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger."

* 21:97 "Behold them...

Koran
* 3:151 "We shall cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve."

4:74 "Fight in the way of Allah who sell the life of this world for the other. Whoso fighteth in the way of Allah, be he slain or be he victorious, on him We shall bestow a vast reward."

* 4:76 "Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the minions of the devil."

* 4:91 "Take them and kill them wherever ye find them. Against such We have given you clear warrant."

* 8:12 "I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger."

* 21:97 "Behold them, staring wide (in terror), the eyes of those who disbelieve!"

* 33:35-36 "Allah repulsed the disbelievers. ... He brought those of the People of the Scripture who supported them down from their strongholds, and cast panic into their hearts. Some ye slew, and ye made captive some.

* 59:2 "He it is Who hath caused those of the People of the Scripture who disbelieved to go forth from their homes unto the first exile. Ye deemed not that they would go forth, while they deemed that their strongholds would protect them from Allah. But Allah reached them from a place whereof they recked not, and cast terror in their hearts so that they ruined their houses with their own hands and the hands of the believers. So learn a lesson, O ye who have eyes!"

* 59:13 "Ye are more awful as a fear in their bosoms than Allah.

Thou Shalt Not Kill Who?

Specific laws which follow from the love law can be better understood by keeping the ingroup definition of neighbor in mind. Consider the proto-legal portion of The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:17-21; JPS '17 & KJV):

Thou shalt not kill.
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Neither shalt thou steal.
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour
Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife and you shall not desire your neighbor's
house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that
is your neighbor's.

And add the realiz...

Thou Shalt Not Kill Who?

Specific laws which follow from the love law can be better understood by keeping the ingroup definition of neighbor in mind. Consider the proto-legal portion of The Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:17-21; JPS '17 & KJV):

Thou shalt not kill.
Neither shalt thou commit adultery.
Neither shalt thou steal.
Neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour
Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife and you shall not desire your neighbor's
house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that
is your neighbor's.

And add the realization that the scrolls from which these words were translated have no periods, no commas, and no first-word capitalization. Decisions about where sentences and paragraphs begin and end are courtesy of the translator. Accordingly, instead of being written as five separate paragraphs of one sentence each, without changing any of the words, Deuteronomy 5:17-21 could be translated:

Thou shalt not kill, neither shalt thou commit adultery, neither shalt thou steal, neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour. Neither shall you covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his manservant, or his maidservant, his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor's.

Here the question, "Thou shalt not kill who?" is answered "Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor — the children of thy people, your countrymen" … your fellow in-group member.

laceym

These are interesting information, thanks. It would be interesting, too, if you can find out some most positive claims in texts of both religions; just for balance and maybe to show some discordances.

As I said:

you will always easily find something out there you can criticize and condemn; as you can - if you wish - always find really positive and noble aspects, which serves for universal benefits.

I read once amusing notion that people use bible as self-service store – you take what you like and what you need, and ignore what you dislike. This is definitely true for any similar texts.
It is all about what are your hidden or evident intentions.

For me real challeng...

laceym

These are interesting information, thanks. It would be interesting, too, if you can find out some most positive claims in texts of both religions; just for balance and maybe to show some discordances.

As I said:

you will always easily find something out there you can criticize and condemn; as you can - if you wish - always find really positive and noble aspects, which serves for universal benefits.

I read once amusing notion that people use bible as self-service store – you take what you like and what you need, and ignore what you dislike. This is definitely true for any similar texts.
It is all about what are your hidden or evident intentions.

For me real challenge is not: religions or not religions – but how to bring positive dynamics (changes) into the heart of all existing “-isms” (in case of religions into their “sacred texts”)… How to remove unneeded and unhealthy resources from self-service stores of our minds…

I firmly believe that only unconditional love is ultimate law which brings us real positive changes. Love for good and positive, so strong, so clear and determined (and first of all UNCONDITIONAL) that bad and negative will lose energy and vanish.
I can say for myself this is my ultimate goal, and as I am a human it is not an easy task. As we are humans it is not an easy task – but it is our noble destiny!

Ahh, yes. Nice things can be found. Do they somehow balance out the commands to do evil?

Problem is, the people that do evil in the name of religion are actually morally and logically sound "according to scripture!"

If they love their neighbor, but seek to kill you for believing in another god or believing different than you, (meaning you are working for the devil), then they are scripturally right to kill you. The good book says so.

"Sin" is not so much doing wrong (as in evil), but rather in not doing god's will! And they don't wish to be sinful by not doing god's will.

In essence, they are doing the will of god, according to scripture, in killing you.

No amount of "niceties" are...

Ahh, yes. Nice things can be found. Do they somehow balance out the commands to do evil?

Problem is, the people that do evil in the name of religion are actually morally and logically sound "according to scripture!"

If they love their neighbor, but seek to kill you for believing in another god or believing different than you, (meaning you are working for the devil), then they are scripturally right to kill you. The good book says so.

"Sin" is not so much doing wrong (as in evil), but rather in not doing god's will! And they don't wish to be sinful by not doing god's will.

In essence, they are doing the will of god, according to scripture, in killing you.

No amount of "niceties" are going to whitewash the inherent evil that these fundamentalists sincerely think is good and righteous. To tolerate other religions, faiths, and beliefs...is to tolerate the devil. And that cannot be tolerated.

Love thy neighbor, but stone the SOB if he believes different than "your" interpretation of scripture.

How do you balance that?

AccesLucky you intentionally equalize as been religious is same as been fanatic and aggressive to all other believing. It is simply not the case. Vast majority of religious people are tolerant to other believing as they don’t take their religious scriptures too literal and they are oriented on positive parts of them. I knew tenths of this kind of people here in my country. They are extremely decent and worm peoples.
I will repeat again: peoples live by their inner intentions first of all and only from this point they can use or misuse this or that part of scriptures.
Anyway, I agree with you that there are some records in religious scriptures which potentially can stimulate some people “to ...

AccesLucky you intentionally equalize as been religious is same as been fanatic and aggressive to all other believing. It is simply not the case. Vast majority of religious people are tolerant to other believing as they don’t take their religious scriptures too literal and they are oriented on positive parts of them. I knew tenths of this kind of people here in my country. They are extremely decent and worm peoples.
I will repeat again: peoples live by their inner intentions first of all and only from this point they can use or misuse this or that part of scriptures.
Anyway, I agree with you that there are some records in religious scriptures which potentially can stimulate some people “to do evil”, as you say. But this is not problem only in religions, all “-isms” has this potentials.
For example I see materialistic base of Darwin-ism at least as dangerous as any fanatic religion statement (yet I don’t plan to battle my private war against Darwinism).

AccesLucky you intentionally equalize as been religious is same as been fanatic and aggressive to all other believing. It is simply not the case.

I agree. Some religious people are nice and peaceful and wish well to others. In fact, I'd say most are that way (by a long shot).

They are the one's who do NOT take scripture literally; they soften the bad things in scripture with secular justice and morals. They are good people.

"peoples live by their inner intentions first of all and only from this point they can use or misuse this or that part of scriptures."

Again, I agree.

"For example I see materialistic base of Darwin-ism at least as dangero...

read more»

AccesLucky you intentionally equalize as been religious is same as been fanatic and aggressive to all other believing. It is simply not the case.

I agree. Some religious people are nice and peaceful and wish well to others. In fact, I'd say most are that way (by a long shot).

They are the one's who do NOT take scripture literally; they soften the bad things in scripture with secular justice and morals. They are good people.

"peoples live by their inner intentions first of all and only from this point they can use or misuse this or that part of scriptures."

Again, I agree.

"For example I see materialistic base of Darwin-ism at least as dangerous as any fanatic religion statement (yet I don’t plan to battle my private war against Darwinism)."

Also agreed. Though evil people will do evil things, I admit I have never heard of a person doing evil in the name of "no god". Rather, they do evil with something else as the reason; to get rich, due to hate, or for power, etc..

I don't mean to characterize religious people as morally evil. My point was that religion is a very poor judge and/or example of morals.

And the example I use for that as evidence is that the fanatics (the fundamentalists) are only doing what the scriptures tell them to!

Why then should we use scriptures "at all" for moral guidance, even though it contains some "good" things as well? Clearly, some people can't separate the two.

But I do understand what you're communicating.

duvelic - "...They are integrated part of evolution of human race."

This is an interesting topic. While studying cognitive science at university, this topic came up during one class discussions.

If I recall correctly, a student asked the professor a question having something to do with the Neanderthal brain being compared to the modern human brain. We all got to talking about this when somehow, religion came up. Anyway, the teacher asked us what we thought would be the most telling or informative of the artifacts that have been found with the early modern human archaeological finds. (from a cognitive science perspective)

During this discussion, it was decided that any artifacts that...

duvelic - "...They are integrated part of evolution of human race."

This is an interesting topic. While studying cognitive science at university, this topic came up during one class discussions.

If I recall correctly, a student asked the professor a question having something to do with the Neanderthal brain being compared to the modern human brain. We all got to talking about this when somehow, religion came up. Anyway, the teacher asked us what we thought would be the most telling or informative of the artifacts that have been found with the early modern human archaeological finds. (from a cognitive science perspective)

During this discussion, it was decided that any artifacts that gave indication of religious beliefs was the most telling of all the artifacts from a cognitive science perspective. Why? Because the first appearance of religious artifacts denotes the point in mans evolution when man first passed the threshold in his level of his intelligence that allowed him to become fully conscious of his own existence such that he was able apply his understanding of the concept of cause and effect to his existence. He became capable of asking: Why am I here? Why do I exist? What made me and my world? From these first unintelligent questions that he asked and struggled to answer, man create a reason or a cause for his existence... he created God.

The first appearance of early mans religious beliefs reflected in the artifacts tells us approximately when man became man.

Sense that class discussion, I have spent a lot of time pondering over how our ability to think lead to the belief in God. It seems to me that it may have been inevitable that man would develop a belief in God and create religions around these beliefs in God. It is amazing that after all this time; the majority of man still clings to this belief system.

I think it is time for man to finally let go of his baby blanket.

Does the understanding of rank and the desire to outwardly communicate one's rank to the group demonstrate the same level of cognitive skill that asking the question why am I hear does?

No. It's that "why" am I here comes second.

It cannot be asked "why am I here" without first having the cognitive ability to understand that "I" (as separate from everything else) am here. [ "I" = the "what" ]

Jewelry establishes evidence of ego. It establishes "beingness". It establishes first, "I am a being" separate from other beings.

Jewelry establishes self importance. It establishes first that there "is" an I. (A distinct evidence of an ego!) It establis...

Does the understanding of rank and the desire to outwardly communicate one's rank to the group demonstrate the same level of cognitive skill that asking the question why am I hear does?

No. It's that "why" am I here comes second.

It cannot be asked "why am I here" without first having the cognitive ability to understand that "I" (as separate from everything else) am here. [ "I" = the "what" ]

Jewelry establishes evidence of ego. It establishes "beingness". It establishes first, "I am a being" separate from other beings.

Jewelry establishes self importance. It establishes first that there "is" an I. (A distinct evidence of an ego!) It establishes to the self that "I am important."

It then signifies "I am important" to others! The social ego develops likewise. Kings get "special" ornamentation. Leaders (like in the Army) get special ornamentation; stripes, stars, badges, medals, etc..

Once it is established that "I" am here, distinct and separate from others...

"WHY am I here" now becomes relevant.

I'm no psycho-anthropologist, but I think (as a humble guess) any kind of jewelry establishes self awareness (the "what" as opposed to the "why").

Religious relics merely follow suit (pertaining to rank).

Though this is a significant achievement in of itself, it being a "prerequisite" would seem to show a slightly less degree of cognitive achievement compared to the asking of "Why I am here" .

I totally agree.

But I confess, I'm not really convinced that religious relics ask that question. I think religion came about due to fear.

A volcano erupts, people die. How do we keep the (anthropomorphizing) volcano from killing us. We must have done something to anger it. Give it something of value (to us) as a gift (bribe).

An altar, sacrificial, is born.

An animal stalks and kills one of the tribe in the dark of night. We can't see well in the night. Our fear embellishes our ima...

Though this is a significant achievement in of itself, it being a "prerequisite" would seem to show a slightly less degree of cognitive achievement compared to the asking of "Why I am here" .

I totally agree.

But I confess, I'm not really convinced that religious relics ask that question. I think religion came about due to fear.

A volcano erupts, people die. How do we keep the (anthropomorphizing) volcano from killing us. We must have done something to anger it. Give it something of value (to us) as a gift (bribe).

An altar, sacrificial, is born.

An animal stalks and kills one of the tribe in the dark of night. We can't see well in the night. Our fear embellishes our imaginations. It might be invisible or an evil demon. How can we defend against an invisible spirit demon? A Talisman is born.

Thunder and lightening. Loud and ferocious. Wind gods and thunder gods are born. How can we appease them? Churches are born.

And so forth. It's no different today. Millions of Christians wear the Crucifix to ward off evil. The level of intellect is no different. Only the sophistication of the relic.

I think the "why" am I here came much later, when we were relatively safe in communities, allowing thought to go beyond survival.

I personally don't think religion "ever" answers the question "why am I here." At its most base level, it could only be "to serve some god". But it still begs the question...why?

The only answer possible is "To save thine ass!" So it always still comes down to survival.

"If I might ask, what is your back ground?"

Uhh, I love to learn. I find the world fascinating and very beautiful. I hate injustice of all kinds.