What does religion matter when people, children, are dying?

[Chiwahwah]

I'm an atheist so struggle to understand but even if I was religious I feel that sanctity of life would be of the upmost importance?
How can anyone allow such atrocities in the name of religion?
Doesn't it go against the fabric of what religion should be?
I just don't understand at all. I feel so broken that this is happening, we're all just human.

Why aren't we capable of doing of living peacefully? :(

All over the world people are hurting each other.

Sometimes I feel like humans are just monsters.

Because religion is also a tribal badge, an ethnicity marker, a group identity. The Troubles weren’t about doctrinal differences between NI Protestants or Catholics.

I'm assuming you're referring to what's happening in the Middle East?

If so, it's not about religion. It's about resources, land, safety, hundreds of years of historical persecution, and politics.

Still completely unacceptable, though.

Immensely naive

You have a false belief that religion/all religions are essentially about 'love' or the 'sanctity of human life'. Those beliefs come from having grown up in a post-Christian society that doesn't understand anything much about religion.

Rather than despairing about other humans, ignorance and naivety about religion among westerners are part of the cause of this problem. If you actually want to solve it, making the effort to understand would be a contribution.

Because we're animals. Murdering their kids is essentially what a lion does when he kills another's cubs. Better chance of our own marvellous DNA succeeding.

There’s nothing about religion in what’s happening now. That’s why it is Israelis vs Palestinians, not Jews vs Arabs. It’s not about what they believe in God, it’s what they think they have a right to as people.

'We believe in what our Prophet Muhammad said: “Allah drew the ends of the world near one another for my sake, and I have seen its eastern and western ends. The dominion of my nation would reach those ends that have been drawn near me," Zahar said in the video that was published on MEMRI TV in December of 2022,

“The entire 510 million square kilometers of Planet Earth will come under [a system] where there is no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no treacherous Christianity and no killings and crimes like those being committed against the Palestinians, and against the Arabs in all the Arab countries, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries," he said.'

WATCH: Israel is only the first target, warns Hamas commander - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

This is the Hamas founding charter from 1988:

'the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).'

The Avalon Project : Hamas Covenant 1988 (yale.edu)

Religion is just an excuse, it's about territory and thousands of years of history. Your "why can't we all just be friends" post is a bit nieve and childish. Obviously it would be great if there was no war, but that's not how it works in the real world. It's massively complicated.

@Chiwahwah Richard Dawkins got it right when he said
"Without religion you have good people doing good things and bad doing bad. It's only with religion that you have good people doing evil things"

"Why aren't we capable of doing of living peacefully? :(" - religion mainly!

Thats how religion matters, they arent all equal in regarding the lives of others.

As pp have said, this isn't about religion.

Sad to say, but millions upon millions of people including children have died under regimes where there was no religion.

It's just man's inhumanity to man.

Doesn’t matter whether the cause is religion, territory, whatever. I agree it’s totally unacceptable and unjustifiable and I can’t believe it is happening

He is absolutely right.

Throughout human history, violence has been done and wars have been fought in the name of ‘religion’.

Yet every established religion has a variation of ‘love your neighbours’ as a central tenet.

It’s not about who believes in what flavour of god. It’s about power.

Ironically, it's hard to see how without some conception of a fundamental soul, a person who does evil things is actually a good person. Even his binary of good people vs bad people is essentially Christian. God vs Devil.

You believe this because you live in a post-Christian, post-liberation theology society in which religion has been reduced to a set of moral rules, in which Christianity has been reduced to 'Lurve', and ecumenism and politics dictates that all other religions are similarly dumbed down for public consumption. You also believe it because despite killing vast numbers of people in the last century, left wing dogmas remain mindlessly embedded in western European culture particularly.

In many religions people who are not of that faith are not seen as worthy of life. Killing in the name of religion is not an issue. Think about it, if you believe your religion is the real, correct one, and you believe that those who are faithful to it will have eternal paradise in the afterlife, and those who don't believe will be condemned to eternal torture, there is no reason not to kill.

Kill a believer, you've done them a favour by sending them to eternal paradise.

Kill a non-believer, it doesn't matter, they were not worthy of life and deserve the eternal damnation that is due to them.

If someone believes these things - things which are written in well-known religious texts and are seen as fact by many - killing is not problematic.

Killing is only really an issue for people who are not convinced of a happier afterlife.

I’m not quite following - I don’t ‘believe’ that all religions are only about ‘lurve’ - I’m just pointing out the fact that nearly all well-established religions share common themes. And that wars are never about ‘religion’ per se but about power. Do you disagree?

I’m also not unaware of the ways in which humans can be brutal and invent non-religious regimes to oppress and gain/maintain power.

I was paraphrasing the dogma. 'Love your neighbour' is not a central tenet of all religions, not by a very long margin. Nor are all religions even fundamentally about central tenets/moral codes anyway.

Of course I disagree that wars are solely about power. Tell me this, are you solely motivated by a desire for power? Of course not. You believe you're motivated by many different things, including your beliefs and values. Even what you define as 'power' is shaped by your culture/religion/worldview.

Everyone who claims wars are only about wealth and power will insist that they themselves are not solely motivated by such base things. Oh but other people are of course - men, capitalists, imperialists, take your pick. On the other hand terrorists are claimed to be motivated by an almost robotic reaction to their environment as they're deemed to be victims and therefore can't be oppressors.

The great Israeli writer and intellectual Amos Oz described the ongoing wars/conflicts and tensions between Gaza and Israel as a real estate dispute, above all else.
When couples divorce, the biggest fight, sometimes bigger than the one over the children, is over property. Humans crave ownership, on a micro and macro scale. We're hardwired to draw lines in the stand and stick flags in the earth. We are not, by nature, good at sharing/agreeing.

You could split hairs over what Amos Oz stated and I have no doubt he'd agree that traditions, cultures, genetics, and religion play huge roles in the ongoing conflict. But at its heart, the conflict is about land, stolen land according to some, land owed according to others. Pick your side of the fence. I think God and religion actually have very little to do with it. It's, very generally and simply speaking, about feeling owed, on both sides.

draw lines in the SAND, not stand. Sorry.

Yep.

Dawkins is full of shit, as evidenced by what the Russians have done to the Ukrainians. Its just a completely stupid take.

Some people on this thread are making really simplistic divisions between ‘religion’ and ‘everything else people do’.

People live their lives through the narratives they tell themselves ( or others tell them) and the beliefs and values in those narratives. Religion is a key narrative that gives people a framework through which they understand the world, other people and what relationship they should have with other people.

Our evolved human instincts ( for status, for connection with others, for tribalism, for security of food and shelter, for pair bonding, for nurturing children etc) , all these are intimately intertwined with religious beliefs.

You can’t separate them out and say, oh religion doesn’t lead to war! Of course it does! And religion is intimately intertwined with issues of power, and territory and dominance and all those other human traits, as religion IS humanity. It’s how we live out our human lives.

@Syrupyslop Well said. The same people who deny religious beliefs can cause wars generally have no problem believing that, say, nationalist beliefs, or racial supremacist beliefs, can cause wars.