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From: russ@ihuxi.UUCP (Russell Spence)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: War and Death
Message-ID: <1130@ihuxi.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 4-Oct-84 16:15:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxi.1130
Posted: Thu Oct  4 16:15:08 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Oct-84 03:56:44 EDT
References: <856@ihuxp.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 56

> Anyone want to agree with me that the psychological prop that we call
> religion has been the biggest cause of war in history?  And it just
> might be the biggest cause of death in total except for old age?
> 
> Walt Pesch

How about this.  Religion may be the biggest cause of war but that isn't its
real danger.  War and death seem to be natural activities for humans.  They
have been around throughout history and we don't have any indications of
them going away.  Violent and competitive urges seem to be an integral part
of the human psychology.  What religion does do is make us feel guilty about
these urges (as well as sexual urges, but that's another flame).  To me
guilt is the most destructive thing that religion has given us.  If you could
deal rationally with the competitive spirit you can transfer it to more
harmless activities (like Monday night football or increased productivity).
Have you ever heard about how religion causes more teenage pregnancies?
People in high school grow up and begin to have sexual urges.  Inevitably
some of them will engage in premarital sex.  For some people with religious
backgrounds this will cause deep feelings of guilt.  To deal with this guilt
a person will sometimes deny to themselves what they are doing, and often as
a result of this neglect to procure contraceptives.  If a pregnancy results,
it can cause an even deeper trauma.  The most damaging thing about this
is the guilt that the person has to go through, and this is of course provided
by the religion (through its teachings).  Of course people could avoid this by
fostering more healthy attitudes about sex.  The first step of course is
realizing that sex is a natural activity for humans.  After all, god created
us, so he obviously also created our sex drives.  Perhaps something analogous
happens with war.  Could it be that we feel the urge to just go out and get
involved in a big brawl, but our moral standards won't allow it, so instead
we find a religious or moral reason to have the war.  This has two effects.
One, we add alot of religious feelings to the war which may make it MORE
destructive than it would have been before. (vis. EXTERMINATE the dirty
[commies|huns|VC|etc.]!!).  Two, it transfers the focus of the war so that 
it no longer serves the purpose it was initiated for, namely, to relieve 
our competitive urges; and instead further represses them.  As I under-
stand the Crusades (and correct me if I'm wrong), the main reason they
were fought, is because alot of knights wanted to rape and plunder the East.
They often used religious reasons to justify their actions.  This caused 
them to continue the war even after they would have been satisified (they
had enough plunder, but hadn't liberated the holy land), and it hid the
true reason that the war was fought (everyone thought it was religious).
I'm not sure how historical this example is, but it illustrates my point.
This repression of the competitive urges by transferring them to religious
feeling could also lead to more wars in the effort relieve them.  Thus,
we could have a vicious cycle of wars, all fought in the name of religion
and morality.  This, of course, is worse than the original sin (having
a big brawl every now and then).  It seems that often times, religion's
cure is worse than the disease.

"Boy, if this doesn't start a discussion..."
-- 

						Russell Spence
						ihnp4!ihuxi!russ
						AT&T Technologies
						Naperville, IL