Normally, people look at religion as a tool for peace and rarely associate it with violence. In reality, religion has been used as a tool to justify violence for centuries. In the book called ‘Is Religion Killing Us?’, the author, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, critically examines the sacred scriptures of the major religions including Christianity, Islam, and Judaism to unveil despicable portraits of a violent God. According to Pallmeyer, each sacred text is dominated by what he calls ‘violence-of-God-tradition’. He does not believe that the texts directly instigate the human violence, but they justify the use of violence amid the conflicts in which antagonistic parties see religious differences as divisions. Importantly, Pallmeyer considers religion …show more content…
For instance, the main message of the Quran is to believe that there is no God but God and Muhammad is God's prophet. In other words, Allah is the only god and Quran is the final revelation of God and everyone should abide by what the book and the prophet says. This monotheistic view is dangerous as it provides justification for violence against other religious groups that do not share the same beliefs. In addition, due to these violent images of God and the strict rules, it is difficult to argue that Osama bin Laden is distorting the text to justify his actions. His theology and his actions are reasonable based on the sacred texts that he …show more content…
These conflicts are not just based on class, religion is also a big contributor. Karl Marx’s conflict theory can be applied to violence associated with religion to better understand it. According to the theory, the society is divided into the hierarchy of classes and prevents the lower classes from rising above and eventually people will fight and overthrow the oppressors or the upper-class. In terms of religion, people accept the suffering in hope for a better next life promised by the religious scriptures. However, eventually people will revolt and try to rise eradicate the sufferings which will lead to a cycle similar to Pallmeyer’s concept of the spiral of violence. One of the most recent evidence of the spiral of violence can be seen in the events that followed the terrorist attack of September 11. There has been an ongoing cycle of violence between the Islamic extremists and Western
In the 1940s and the 1950s the conflict theory was ignored because sociologist thought it was solely economic. Today, sociologists see that conflict is found between many different groups in society. (Crossman) According to the conflict theory, inequality is the result of those who are wealthy, typically those in the upper one percent, which impose their mode of social order on the rest of the general society. In result, society is constantly competing for limited resources.
A great terror struck our nation September 11, 2001, two aircraft’s hit the world trade centers, killing 2000 people and injuring over twice as many. A third aircraft flew into the Pentagon while a fourth crashed in a rural area in Pennsylvania. This day will forever be engrained into history as one of the worst terror attacks faced in this nation. Nearly three years later, in an attempt to figure out what happened on that tragic day, scholars came together to discuss the possible parallels between foreign and domestic terrorist. The author, Michael Kimmel, outlines the possible cause of the 2001 attacks and offers us a link between both foreign and domestic terrorism.
This powerful text, “When Religion Becomes Lethal: The Explosive Mix of Politics and Religion in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” is the centerpiece for understanding the truth behind centuries of spiritual history and politics between three different denominations. Dr. Charles Kimball focuses solely on identifying the negatives within politics and religion as a whole, and how unconstructive the two can actually be. Kimball gave a huge amount of historical insight on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and how each of the religions came about. He also discusses their different relationships and different viewpoints that they have for one another. Lastly, Kimball uses his years of experience to offer a new and much broader way to think about
Conflict can change interaction between people, escalate, and lead towards violence when people within a community express intolerance and restrict others. Some leaders of a community confine others who are different from them, conveying their intolerance; this usually creates more conflict and perpetuates negative opinions. The article “In the City of Brotherly Love” is a clear example of this. After a wave of Irish Catholic immigrants began arriving in the U.S. in the 1820s given the impression that it was a land of opportunity, they unexpectedly received a bitter welcome from the Anglo-Saxon Protestant community. Since they are looked down upon and given no control regarding their rights (including education, religion, and employment),
We shall bestow a vast reward.” In this passage, the Qur'an justifies war and killing with religion. The Qur'an is ingrained in the people, therefore it is ingrained in the culture. Because the Turks made the vast majority of Anatolians practice Islam, they adopted these values and lost the ones they had prior to the
Eighteenth-century Europe witnessed multiple actions taken upon religion. Revolts against, as well as in support of religion were contrasted simultaneously in a period of time, parallel to one-another. With these factors in motion, multiple individuals were subjected to a change in their lifestyle which, in that time, was greatly influenced by religion. In the later years of the eighteenth-century, the French Revolution arose, and the Roman Catholic Church was greatly challenged. Moreover, Enlightened thinkers greatly criticized religion as it would impede progression and innovation, particularly the sciences and new ideas.
In the book “An Ordinary man: An Autobiography” by Paul Rusesabagina, the author faces many bad problems and experiences distasteful moments throughout the whole novel. The author uses quotes the explain the significance of the 1994 Genocide in his own eyes. Near the middle of the story, as Paul explains the harsh treatment and taunting of RTLM against them, he tells us about a teacher who brainwashed her students into hating the “Hutus.” “It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda’s Genocide being described as the product of ‘ancient tribal hatred.’ I think this is a easy way for westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people (Rusesabagina Chp.4 Pg.53).”
Heavily influenced by Max Weber, Peter Berger was interested in the meaning of social structures. Berger’s concern with the meaning societies give to the world is apparent throughout his book The Sacred Canopy (1967), in which he drew on the sociology of knowledge to explain the sociological roots of religious beliefs. His main goal is to convince readers that religion is a historical product, it is created by us and has the power to govern us. Society is a human product. Berger made it very clear from the beginning, that society is a dialectic phenomenon; it was produced by us and in return, produced us too.
Believe it or not, religion, which is “the service and worship of God or the supernatural” (Webster) is far more common than the average Joe notices on the surface. A large amount of people wouldn’t see religious aspects in their everyday life except for those they practice and even then, most are limited to a single day if even that. With the proper lens it is possible to gaze deeper into everyday occurrences and see factors such as subliminal meanings and blatant themes that have religious values to accompanying them. This theme of religion in popular culture can be seen popular aspects of everyday life. Many religious institutions see media within popular culture as an avenue to communicate to the mass their message and/or vision.
Religion in Western civilization has undoubtedly played a pivotal role in shaping and developing Western society. Regardless of the form of religion, such as polytheism or monotheism, people in ancient societies believed in a God or Gods. This belief in a higher power was an important part of human progression and expansion. Religion was the backbone of Western civilization and has always been a very important foundation of culture, schooling, philosophy, art, and social interaction. Before Judaism and Christianity, philosophers such as Aristotle ponder the thought of a higher power and in his book Metaphysics wrote about eternal motion was an unmoved mover.
Unlike in Christian tradition, the Qur'an does not insist that children believe in the same religion as their parents. Also, the Qur'an contains the idea of religious tolerance, especially for the Jewish and Christian faiths. Of course, people can twist and distort the messages of any text. It seems that in the case of Islam, by emphasizing those select times when violence was praised and ignoring those times when it was forbidden or restricted, the religion is used to promote violence. This is aided by the general lack of knowledge of Arabic.
Week Outline Preliminary Thesis Statement: Religion is an essential constituent of any civilization with a unique spiritual pathway. Main Point: Religious spirituality establishes the framework for human social and cultural development. 1. Topic Sentence:
Basis of modern science of conflict is studies of German, Austrian, American sociologists of the 20th century: G.Simmel, L. Gumplowicz, D. Smalley, W. Sumner, R. Dahrendorf, Parsons. Conflict was recognized as normal social phenomenon. A number of biological, psychological, social and other factors inevitably generate conflict. Most scientists refer Georg Simmel to the founders of Theoretical conflictology.
RELIGION CAUSES MORE HAARM THAN GOOD TO SOCIETY Religion according to the oxford dictionary is the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power especially a personal God or gods. Every human being in one way or the other belongs to a particular religion. Since religion makes us worship one God then it should be binding all of us. Actually it is not, it rather tears people apart day in and day out .It is true that religion has influenced society positively in diverse ways, but the bad outweighs the good. Thus I think religion causes more harm than good to the society.
War on Religion There is a belief among people that declares religion as the main cause of wars worldwide, and it has been the main cause of violence throughout the history of humanity. While we cannot deny that, some battles such as the crusades and the Lebanese civil war were based on religious faith, it is totally illogical to consider religion as the main cause of wars. Moreover, although there is also no disagreement that some extremist in Islam were behind 9/11, it is considered a misjudgment to say that all individuals in this religion convey the concept of violence and cruelty. The fact is non-religious incentives take the responsibility for almost all of humans’ wars. Lives lost during religious wars are nothing compared to those lost during non-religious wars.so why people believe that religion is the cause of wars, why they are wrong and do the extremist represent religions?