We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide.

Guest • 10 years ago

Gimme a break. At least have the guts to tell it like it is. Islam is responsible for the VAST MAJORITY of all religious violence that occurs TODAY.

herb folks nation • 10 years ago

wage peace with us, won't you please? the other way, war, does not work, except for the bullet makers and bomb sellers, in league with the flat world religionists, haters all. http://www.theHolyHerb.com/... om peace aMen

HC • 10 years ago

Be sure to catch Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate on 2/4/2014: The battle of people with short names.

HC • 10 years ago

Religion. Not even once.

PaulK2 • 10 years ago

1. Our Christian-based national culture has decided to kill everyone in the world in about an hour and a half, someday. We can wait.
2. Billions of people go to bed hungry. They live under pieces of plastic or little corrugated steel pieces, to keep out the rain. There is no such thing as a police presence for them in their slums, only one against them, nor does a functioning justice system exist for them. Their purpose in life is to make things for you, the rich Westerner, then die early. Their children's purpose in life is to make things for your kids. Their grandchildren's purpose in life is I guess to die in a nuclear winter.

I think it's really nice that humanity is becoming increasingly less violent, but I'm sorry that religious violence is on the rise. Now, is Kim Kardashian's surgically enhanced derriere on TV yet? I want to go stare at it again, because all this gives me a headache.

Jeffersonian • 10 years ago

This is the biggest communist propaganda website outside of trillionaire George Soros, media matters! Not only is it obvious that it's government propaganda, but it's obvious MSM or Government controlled by the way this article danced around the fact that the Muslim istremists were the attackers and who killed the Coptic Christians Libya (not the Monks like it couldbe assumed since the writer didn't separate the 2 incidents in 2 separate sentences). Only MSM and the US government paints Muslims as the depressed and peace loving groups.

rayb_baby • 10 years ago

You lose ALL CREDIBILITY the second you say "communist propaganda" and the rest isn't even worth wasting my time reading. Now go back to the right-wing, Nazi propaganda that you must so much enjoy reading so you can come here to troll.

Guest • 10 years ago
herb folks nation • 10 years ago

read Charlie wilsons war, and come back and say that crap. read up on blackwater, Cheney's private army, and spew that nonsense. all flatworld religions (the 3 of them derived from the "same sources") Christian/jew/muslim) push hate, with killing at their center.

HC • 10 years ago

It seems you're not paying attention. At all.

Cindy Covington-Huang • 10 years ago

I wouldn't say that. Didn't Bush say that god told him to go to war with Iraq? How many Muslims (innocents) died in that war?

redacted • 10 years ago

Please.

I hold all religions in equal contempt, but it's not Muslims blowing up reproductive health centers or shooting their staff, nor was it a Muslim that shot up the Holocaust Museum.

I can cite another 20 or 30 recent (past 10 years) examples of Christian-on-everyone violence - with reputable links - if you like.

Confirmation bias is not your friend, friend.

Jeffersonian • 10 years ago

Please do! Please write about the Christian on everyone violence in the past 10 years! I've cannot seem to recall any in the past decade! I can recall a gunmen entering the Christian based Family Research Center and shot the guard because of the hate group called the southern poverty law center has labeled the FRC as a "hate group" because they are not pro-gay.

rayb_baby • 10 years ago

Here's one for ya!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

And there are others, but what I love about you is how you claim the SPLC is a hate group because it proves that the FRC is CLEARLY a hate group. You obviously love real hate groups.
Now BACK TO YOUR CAVE, Mr. Troll!

Anna • 10 years ago

Religion is all nonsense from top to bottom and
side to side. It is the remnant of primitive human beings. We no longer
need superstitious explanations for lightening, thunder, rain, sunshine
or the origin of the Universe. As long as people insist on living by
astrology and biblical mythology, we will have misery caused by these
superstitions.

There are more than enough things for people to
fight about - together we can reason our way through most of our issues.
But we cannot reason about irrationality itself - and that is exactly
what religion is - irrationality treated as if it were a benefit rather
than a bane to our existence.

HC • 10 years ago

Well said.

SonoranSeeker • 10 years ago

If anything this article shows how deluded and dangerous leftists are. More Americans have died from dog bites than from religious conflict. Further, atheist Marxists and communists have killed over 100 million people in the last century because of their radical political extremism. The atheist Soviet communists sent millions of religious people to their deaths in the gulags or in "mental hospitals".
Don't buy the leftist propaganda. Atheism mixed with radical politics, the kind Pinker, Harris and Werleman promote, is a recipe for DISASTER.

Jeffersonian • 10 years ago

True Dat! It is obvious government and corporate approved propaganda because the article disregards the fact that Obama is using our tax dollars to fund Islamist terrorists, aka Al CIA-da, to commit genocide in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Somalia and soon Iran. Our tax dollars are funding our enemy because Obama wins both ways, assisting Muslim extremists that Obama's brothers are running and profiting but he also gets to play Hitler without using American troops, all while the MSM lies and sheeple communist like these morons believe the "Arab Spring" was a civil uprising from citizens of those countries and not an invasion of terrorists funded by Obama and Saudi royalty. These idiots are beyond help! They believe they are "liberal" and that there is a night and day difference between Obama and Bush! They believe Sandy Hook is real, and that there is sudden school shooting crisis going on, because kiddies have just gone serial killer crazy all ofa sudden and the kiddies aren't going to stop until Obama and his commie buddies get the gun grab laws they want or the republicans give our guns over to the United Nations John Kerry treaty !

rayb_baby • 10 years ago

"These idiots are beyond help!" > "My idiots are beyond help!"
There, I fixed it for you!

redacted • 10 years ago

lol! A rueful laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.

Of course, your 'point' fails to recognize that many regimes/governments characterized as "left" were anything but (like, say, the right wing Nazis and their "National Socialism"... Soviet/Chinese state capitalism... etc). Additionally, you undoubtedly refuse to ascribe any responsibility whatsoever to other right wing regimes/politicians and the countless direct/indirect deaths that their imperialist, for-profit "philosophies" caused (not that you even bothered to mention the possibility).

Your second sentence is either further evidence of your own ignorance or it's just a simple lie.

Everything in your post is false, your understanding of history is grossly ignorant, and your agenda is stupid, anti-human, and pathetically simplistic.

You sir, are the perfect caricature of the classic right wing religious nut: angry, ignorant, and eager to lie in support of your own prejudices and bigotries.

Hopefully your two uprates are indicative of nothing but your own penchant for sock puppetry.

M. Yacoob • 10 years ago

Mr. CJ Werleman, Thank you for pointing out the violence among Muslims, Catholics and Protestants and giving the details. However, you need to do some more learning and studying and research in the area of Hindus vs Muslim beyond Kashmir in the Asian Sub-continent. Hindus are killing Muslims by thousands in India. In 1992 Hindus demanded 3000 Mosques claiming they were Hindu temples and demolished Babri Mosque and its three domes and later killed more than 1000 Muslims. In 2002 in the State of Gujarat Hindus killed more than 2000 Muslims and the Chief Minister of that State is still ruling the state. Recently in city of Muzaffar Nagar, State of U.P., Hidus
killed more than 40 Muslims and made 50,000 Muslims homeless.
More than 100 anti-Muslim riots take place in India every year and 80 to 90% killed are Muslims, whose houses are burned, shops and businesses looted and they become homeless. Please do research about this and also add in you article . Thank you sir.

M.Yacoob

Jeffersonian • 10 years ago

How about pointing out how many Christians in Syria have died because they were Christians? That number in 2 years has outnumbered by far the number of Muslims that you state were killed by Hindus! The Syrians are not only killed, but tortured, burned alive in ovens, tortured and beheaded, toddlers chained alive to watch their mommy and daddy get beheaded by Obama and McCain's terrorist buddies that were paid to invade Syria and overthrow the country into Islamist extremists regime (Muslim brotherhood)! Yep,Obama is funding terrorist and when they aren't winning he stages false flag chemical attacks and lies that our intelligence proves Assad's troops released them; however, the UN and a Syrian nun prove without a doubt that the terrorists faked the video of a chemical attack with kids they kidnapped and using the chemical weapons that Obama, UK, France and Saudis provided to the terrorists! Just like hitler, Obama's hero, he gets to kill people from a religion he cannot stand! Thanks to our government controlled media, moron liberal Obama asskissers that believe everything that Obama says like he's god, and the US taxpayers funding the terrorists, and the idiots that believe that our government and media would never lie!

rayb_baby • 10 years ago

" false flag chemical attacks"
You are absolutely, truly, without a doubt one ignorant, brainwashed, right-wing moron. I'm not even going to bother addressing the rest of your ignorant screed.

atheist for armistice • 10 years ago

wow.....that's a bit hefty....mind if i borrow your tinfoil hat for a moment? all sarcasm aside, Obama IS staying out of Syria because of the Islamic situation there. could you give us a link to your source that says Obama is behind the chemical attacks in Syria? And as for christians dying in Syria, thousands of people everyday are killed violently for reasons that are political, religious, economical or something else, but you seem to only care about the dead christians. Have i got it right?

redacted • 10 years ago

Presenting the death toll from only one religion to the exclusion of all others would have clearly been wrong, but that is not what the authors did.

An attempt to give a complete picture of religion's endless death toll
would result in an article so long and unwieldy as to be unpublishable
in an outlet such as this.

paul walmark • 10 years ago

Over thousands of years more people have been tortured, killed and otherwise brutalized, in the name of one god or another, than for any other reason. Any of you who try to pass this blood-soaked history off on some other cause are, quite frankly, blowing smoke.
Religion is the number source of all violence, war and bloodshed in the world, past and present. To deny this, is to deny reality, and the god-botherers are especially good at that! Just ask the Irish, the Palestinians, the Muslims of Myanmar, the people of the Balkans, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.
For anyone Christian, or Jewish, read the Old Testament, please. E god portrayed there is a sadistic, vicious, cruel son of a bitch, who tormented even his true believers, like poor old Job, just for fun, yeah? Look what he did to Adam and Eve, because they, supposedly, had the gall to disobey his orders.
Love him? BS! We're supposed to be terrified of him.
But you don't have to believe the fairy tales, folks. They were all made up by power brokers, after all. Mostly patriarchs who wanted to keep all the goodies for themselves!
As it was in the beginning, so it is today. The power brokers still want you to go on buying the BS. And, god knows (apparently, he really does, dontcha know?) millions, nay, billions of people still buy it.
So carry on. Believe. Kill. All in the name of your particular god. At least it helps with the overpopulation problem!

Guest • 10 years ago
redacted • 10 years ago

He says, backing up his assertions with absolutely nothing.

So... From you, that's 1) one comment that claims "non religious regimes" and "secular despots" are responsible for "more" violence than their religious counterparts (and, amazingly, you suggest historical knowledge of "pre-historic times", lol). And 2) one comment that blames all the religious violence that DOES exist, on Muslims.

Nah, you're not an absurdly biased right wing Christian... not at all...lol

Guest • 10 years ago
redacted • 10 years ago

Sophistry.

How do you think wars for profit/imperialism are sold to the conscripted masses? Try reading some of the lyrics to nationalistic/militaristic songs sometime... Always - always - you'll find that "god" is on the side of the aggressors.

Having the historical hindsight to recognize that most conflicts come down to the theft of resources in no way negates the fact that at the time those wars were packaged for public acceptance in terms that would garner support. Frequently, those terms included a religious aspect.

The stuff about atheism and Marxism was just silly, and I'm sure the majority of people reading it will give it all the credence it deserves.

It amazes me that people pretending to be religiously humanistic have the nerve to call atheists "liars", when by definition they are not the ones plundering the myths/legends of cultures past, repackaging them, and using them to enforce gender roles, steal resources, and otherwise create a structure for the acquisition of power.

Transparently specious 'reasoning', a fallacious accounting of history, and an inarguably self-serving religious agenda. Y'scored a hat trick, 'McCarthy'.

howa4x • 10 years ago

Religion sets us an immediate we vs they situation. We of course are the true believers and they are the enemy, whoever they are. Sometimes there is coexistence but other times that ignites killing on a mass scale. When people see themselves as a special people because of their faith they are much more likely to slaughter those who don't believe. The non believer poses a direct threat to the true believer. America is different in a way because our real religion is capitalism. I write that because true capitalism is about winners and losers and that is far for what Jesus ever preached. We enter wars that help the economy like Iraq. We need to be on a war footing because a large part of our economy depends on it. In this country we have a separation of church and state and that has prevented much of the violence that plagues other countries. Look at some recent wars. Bosnia: the catholic Croats are fighting with the eastern orthodox Serbs and the Muslims. Kosovo: Eastern orthodox Vs Muslims. Iraq: Shia Vs Sunni Muslims. Syria: Sunni vs Shia. Nigeria: Christian vs Muslims. The list goes on and will continue

Fritz Kohlhaas • 10 years ago

Religion thrives on violence!

Anthony McCarthy • 10 years ago

Yeah, you can tell that from the Quakers and the Church of the Brethren and Oomoto and all those other war mongering folk.

Atheists, when they have control of governments, have had a near uniform history of brutality, bloodshed and oppression. The Reign of Terror, the war in the Vendee, the Calles ditatorship in Mexico, the "Marxist" regimes, not a single instance of atheists in control of a state has been democratic of non-violent. The closest thing to an exception is the post-war Castro government in Cuba and that's hardly been democratic or non-violent. You can contrast those Scandinavian countries which have had state churches and decade upon decade of relative nonviolence and democracy. Even the officially secular though not at all atheist United States has a more violent history for all its neutrality in matters religious.

Your statement fails the test of empirical observation in history. That won't keep atheist from repeating the lie, they don't believe it's a sin to tell a lie, afterall.

Commenter • 10 years ago

War is the most violent crime against humanity of all, and the United States is the worst perpetrator. Our corporate state regime has no legitimate reason whatsoever for invadiing, mass murdering, torturing, maiming and destroying so many innocent people throughout the world. The U.S. war machine and its covert forces are the only terrorists,

Atbara • 10 years ago

The problem with organised religion is their preoccupation with gaining the 'high ground' over other religions, their need to be 'The One and Only' way for all humanity to live, and this is wrong because it breeds ignorant, contemptible hatred instead of the enlightened, compassionate love we need to survive as a species on this miraculous planet we share.

Badnews Bear • 10 years ago

I'm not usually a big fan of CJ's work, but this article does have some redeeming qualities, and tends to be at its worst when leaning on others (esp Sam Harris)

What I liked was the conclusion that when religion becomes a state mandate things turn violent.

What I didn't like was Sam's idea that the deeper you look into scripture the more you tend to be led into maiming and killin, while cherry pickers deal with the rare peace and love type passages. Sam has obviously not looked very deep into the scriptures, nor the hater's butcheries of said scripture.

No; the haters are the more obvious cherry-pickers, and we find what we all look for, as Hamann noted:

"Such works are like mirrors; if an ape looks in no apostle can look out"

http://nsa20.casimages.com/...

lol, is that on your sever big bro'? ;)

Anthony McCarthy • 10 years ago

If you read the Pew study that he purports to base this on you would see he completely distorts what the study is about and what it says beneath the headline. That would pretty much negate any "redeeming qualities" you imagine are there.

Really20 • 10 years ago

There is no religious violence. There is only secular violence that uneducated and angry young men (and women) view with a religious angle. The aims of terrorism, the Crusades, etc. were all motivated by secular political concerns.

atheist for armistice • 10 years ago

sorry mate, but when a bloke screams allah akbar and blows himself up in a market place, that right there, thats religious. Don't even get me started on The Troubles.

Keith Hill • 10 years ago

That is quite some delusion you have going on there. When people kill others because their god tells them to, or because they want to demonstrate that their god is more powerful, that is religious violence. There is political gain in a lot of the violence like the crusades, but look at the violence in the middle east where they throw acid on women. That has no political motivation at all.

Bliss Doubt • 10 years ago

I agree with Really20. The problem is always with church/state collusion. Governments get the churches frothed up, the churches get the people frothed up, and onward march the Christian soldiers while their puppet masters await the spoils. The Crusades were very much about European second sons building their fortunes elsewhere, and they could do it in the name of God. I think church power is the whole reason why both Bush and Obama promoted the so called "faith based initiatives" to funnel taxpayer money to already powerful fundy organizations.

Wally • 10 years ago

"throw acid on women"

Political? Maybe. If you keep women scared to assert themselves then it certainly keeps them out of the political arena. Just a thought.

ajaxthegreat • 10 years ago

Gerin Oil: The most violent drug of all.

john smith • 10 years ago

religion is still at root of violence relating to envir. and ecosystem collapse which is also underlying most current conflict since denialists prevent any actual solutions (choosing instead to do nothing and call their apathy 'end times' and then pervert things to try to convert whoever is left while spewing bullsh!t like some other religion is heathen.)

exhibit A: limbaugh and falwell's a$$hole religious comments re fukushima haiti etc.

amazing how right wing aholes are all s1lent when oil disasters fracking disasters WV deregulation of coal disaster etc occurs in so called 'christian' nation.

the word 'god' didn't appear on anything from money to courthouse to pledge of allegiance until after wwII when orig. right wing extremist became prez in similar natl fervor similar to bush becoming prez during 'crisis' time.

jesse ventura said it best; religion is for weak-minded. and there is no shortage of weak-minded americans in 2013 or faux entertainment news wouldn't exist.

mortgage meltdown IS directly related to christian perversity.

chrisitianity is ONLY religion on planet which doesn't forbid usury or preying on poor for greed like right wing corporations in this christian nation.

wildthang • 10 years ago

Do they include the mortgage meltdown as violence? What about economic, academic, and adversarial legal violence. Or ecological violence to our natural habitat? Violence to factory farm animals and with pesticides. What of financial violence via ponzi schemes? Police violence and abu graib and Guantanamo violence. The violence of disinformation and false advertising to lure people to war and lure people to buy by behavioral techniques, psychological violence..

Badnews Bear • 10 years ago

If somebody had no clue what was going on they could call abu graib and Guantanamo religious violence. Good thing we have cj to keep us informed and make peace on earth ;)

Same dogma, different day. So, you think SECULAR MATERIALISM is better? You think cutting mankind away from all Cosmic Wisdom and PRETENDING that humanity is alone and isolated in the galaxy IS REAL, is an intelligent strategy? I doubt it. When humans rationalize their violent behavior with Religious DOGMA, that's no different from the State RATIONALIZING DRONE ATTACKS BY CLAIMING the US is being attacked by farmers in Syria or Afghanistan. AlterNet is very disappointing today, for its reliance on dogmatic bullshit.

Cloudchopper • 10 years ago

Don't give up on Alternet just yet. They do seem biased in many ways, yet they also publish articles totally opposite to that bias. What is interesting is that different articles attract different posters. That alone shows that they try to present a variety.

As far as your post, I agree. Killing in the name of religion or killing in the name of the State is still killing.

Cosmic Wisdom. As far as most are concerned there is no such thing. They are either overly religious people who reject cosmic wisdom, or they are too secular and aslo reject cosmic wisdom.

What is funny from some of the posts is that they believe that peace would reign if they could only get rid of all religious people. Others think that peace would reign if the could only get rid of all democrats, and others swear that peace would reign if all Republicans would drown with a bridge collapse.

Cosmic wisdom still has some way to go, hopefully it will triumph in the end without killings, drones, shootings, warts and hatred.

TomJoad • 10 years ago

What about the imperial violence and brutality the US initiates and perpetuates around the globe? The article may be true for some localized populations around the world but falls way short on the big picture.

"Sam Harris, author of Letter to a Christian Nation, observes, “Faith inspires violence in two ways. First, people often kill other human beings because they believe the creator of the universe wants them to do it…Second, far greater numbers of people fall into conflict with one another because they define their moral community on the basis of their religious affiliation"

Replace God with George W. Bush or Barak Obama and you have the same psychological phenomenon at work. Replace the wording of 'moral community' with the more easily identifiable United States of America and you see the same thing. For us, its this marriage of, or menage a trois of, religion, nationalism and unbridled corporate capitalism that feeds our imperial violence around the globe. Religion is only twisted for many to give the appearance of moral authority to this whole wretched enterprise. Religion, however, is not the driver. Eliminate bad religion from this mix and we still have the more hideous latter two to deal with. Sam Harris, in his idiot rush to condemn all religion, fails to see this.

The OCCULT RELIGION, which George Bush, Queen Elizabeth, the Rothschilds in Europe, and Masons all over the world--pursue--is the SOURCE OF GENOCIDE to which we are all witnesses. It's not Atheism, it's not Christianity, it's not even Islam. So when are you going to wake up and smell the coffee???