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rickster155 In reply to undefinedreference [2018-07-07 23:08:21 +0000 UTC]

there are many denominations around here....I was raised Catholic but no longer practice or believe in it. My mother is buried at this cemetery and I visit her often. I think these religious statues are interesting from an artistic standpoint...but beyond that they have little meaning to me.

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undefinedreference In reply to rickster155 [2018-07-08 08:43:06 +0000 UTC]

I spent my first two years in primary school as a little Protestant among Catholics. And not just any Catholics, those were genuine Opus Dei people. That experience, and growing up among Catholics in general, has left me with a kind of ever-present background-interest in the whole Catholic-Protestant thing. From what I've seen it has more to do with mentality than with religious dogmas, which seem to serve mostly as an excuse to create a distance between one ca,p and the other. And these things no longer matter much anyway, because these days hostility has shifted towards Muslims across the entire Christian spectrum. Me being a Protestant wasn't my biggest "sin" on that school btw. I also happened to live across the main road, which was considered far worse

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rickster155 In reply to undefinedreference [2018-07-08 11:52:59 +0000 UTC]

We...human beings I mean...tend to like to have an "enemy" we can feel superior to...someone of a different faith or ethnic background...people of a different color. Rather than make an attempt to understand them we'd rather put them down and hate them. And religious bias is the worst...look at the atrocities that have been commited over the centuries in the name of one god or another...and it's still happening today...all over the world. We seem to be happier to hate each other because of our differences than come together over what we have in common. It's sad.

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undefinedreference In reply to rickster155 [2018-07-09 08:39:55 +0000 UTC]

And of course one should never underestimate the power of moral justification..

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undefinedreference In reply to rickster155 [2018-07-09 08:15:11 +0000 UTC]

Maybe to understand the other isn't the main issue. Being forced to understand ourselves in a dialogue/confrontation with the other seem an even bigger problem. Most individuals and almost all groups completely freak out when confronted with any "less favorable aspects" of their personalities and conduct.

From the point of view of the elites, I do believe that not a single religious war has ever been fought. At that level it's all about territory, resources and power. It's just that for some reason it proves very difficult to send Joe Average to war on these grounds, and so religion of some other ideology is brought in, and all of a sudden things start to run a lot more smoothly. I think it's because Joe A. needs to have a sense of higher purpose in order to glorify his actions, to turn him into either a hero or a martyr. It's strange though that people would rather die and kill over some idea and belief than over some concrete material gain. Nobody wants to fight in a war that's just for oil, even though it's that oil that puts gas in their tank, but plenty are willing to plunge themselves into an imaginary "clash of civilizations". It doesn't make a great deal of sense.

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