German government trying to force children to go to mosque

[Proteus_MST]

Religions also unite people. Bigotry exists because humans are awful. Sometimes human awfulness gets expressed through religion, other times through greed or patriotism or simple psychopathy.

I agree.
It doesn't help a religion, of course, if its holiest book contains bloodthirsty passages that are (among others) about the main god ordering genocides ... and rules about killing your relatives if they become apostates and killing whole villages if its inhabitants give hospitality to propehts of other faiths.
A problem all 3 major religions of the book have ... and while sane elements of the 3 religions just interpret their holy book in a way that disregards the bloodthirsty passages of the book, history has shown time and again that there are other groups within the 3 religions that convince believers that exactly the bloodthirsty passages are the ones that have to be followed

(And of course, the 3 religions of the boook aren't alone in this ... the problem is shared by many/most of the other older religions as well)

[Elok]

It's very hard to be an Amalekite these days

Srsly, regarding religion as a source, rather than a justification, for violence generally requires you to hold religious groups to far higher standards than secular ones from the same time period. You can argue that we/they should be held to higher standards, but medieval punishments for heresy, say, weren't all that much more barbaric than medieval punishments for purely secular crimes. A petty thief could get body parts hacked off, or have his face branded. Likewise the Crusades were generally no worse than contemporary feuds between Europeans for nonreligious causes. It makes more sense to say that those were less settled times and people took everything to extremes than to single out religion.

[Elok]

There is also the difficulty, often overlooked, of differentiating religious from political causes, when such distinctions can be hard to draw even today, let alone in eras when people believed in the divine right of kings. For example, I'm now reading about persecution of Christians in fifth-century Persia. It would be easy to write this off as an example of Zoroastrian intolerance or some such, but really it was mostly about politics; once Christianity became the official religion of Rome, the Shahs had reason to suspect all Christians of being potential turncoats.

[Ming]

Another good reason (and there are many others) why religion and government should be separate.

[Elok]

I think there's a balance to be struck--it's a pretty poor democracy that doesn't reflect the values of its constituents at all--but certainly official state religions don't do much good, and Christianity at its best is anti-political.

[Giancarlo]

I think what needs to be struck is a high wall between state and religion. The two must be entirely separated.

[giblets]

good luck getting religious people to either separate religion from morality or politics from morality

[Elok]

If you legitimately want politics to be separate from morality--not in a cynical they're-all-liars way but in the sense that any moral beliefs at all are extrinsic to properly conducted state affairs . . .

[Elok]

I think what needs to be struck is a high wall between state and religion. The two must be entirely separated.

. . . and make the church pay for it? Is it gonna be yuge?

[Giancarlo]

If you legitimately want politics to be separate from morality--not in a cynical they're-all-liars way but in the sense that any moral beliefs at all are extrinsic to properly conducted state affairs . . .

Morality is not exclusive to religion nor does it originate in religion.

I was talking about religion.

The state needs to be entirely secular. Forcing religious views into it will violate the rights of those who are not religious or do not conform with religious doctrine.

[Elok]

That's nice. I was talking to Gribbler.

[Giancarlo]

Ah sorry about that.

[giblets]

Morality is not exclusive to religion nor does it originate in religion.

That's nice but religion is still going to influence morality for religious people.

[Giancarlo]

That's nice but religion is still going to influence morality for religious people.

I never said it wasn't. That is their view.

[Proteus_MST]

It's very hard to be an Amalekite these days

Srsly, regarding religion as a source, rather than a justification, for violence generally requires you to hold religious groups to far higher standards than secular ones from the same time period. You can argue that we/they should be held to higher standards, but medieval punishments for heresy, say, weren't all that much more barbaric than medieval punishments for purely secular crimes. A petty thief could get body parts hacked off, or have his face branded.

Oh, I 100% agree here.
One of the most cruel form of execution in medieval europe ... to be hanged, drawn and quartered, even was exclusively for those regarded for traitors of the (english) crown.
And Impalement (probably even more cruel, due to being longer, if done in its vertical form) AFAIK also didn't turn up in context with religious crimes (although Vlad 'Dracul' Tepes, the probably most notorious user of this method of execution, used it to shock muslim (turkish) invaders so much, that they abandoned their plan to invade the christian Wallachia)

Likewise the Crusades were generally no worse than contemporary feuds between Europeans for nonreligious causes. It makes more sense to say that those were less settled times and people took everything to extremes than to single out religion.

Hm ... I disagree here.
About the conquest of Jerusalem it is said, that the crusaders slew so many people (men, women, old and young) that the crusaders waded ankle deep in blood.
And the albigensian crusade was scene of 2 very remarkable scenes:
1. When the town of Beziers was sacked by the catholic crusaders, a soldier asked the leader of the army, a catholic abbot, what to do with the civilians (i.e. how to divide catholics from Cathars). His answer was: Kill them all, as the LORD knows who belongs to him.
And thus it was done
2. When one village was captures, all inhabitants were blinded ... except for one person, who was allowed to keep one of his eyes and was to lead his blind brethren to the next cathar city

It seems to me as if in non religious wars (despite the soldiers, after successful sieges, being given their 3 days of punishment free looting and raping) the survival of the population (of said conquered cities/villages) was of bigger concern to the victors ... whereas in crusades all form of torture and killings were less of a problem, as the civilians of the defeated party just were bloody heathens