If religion is so important in our lives, why are acts of violence and cruelty sometimes done in it's name?

Most of these acts of violence are misunderstanding’s of the relgion itself.

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because religion has never been harmless. there are always crazy people who take things too far, nutjobs who start thinking there here to do gods wouk or who think they are god and manipulate other poor delusional people to kill themselves or do soemthing stupid. and hardcore belivers simly DONT respecyt anyone elses beleifs, so fights break out because they always think their right and your wrong and constantly have to shove their beleive and opinion down your throat. religion is mostly a dangerouse thing. for those few people who beleive in whatever god they choose to beleive in and dont go about judging people who dont, there just happy with the way they life their life, good for them. but a lot of beleivers dont do that, and thats why religion is evil. it manipulates people. and i dont realy need to go on about what churches do with their money and whay a lot of male leaders ahave been doing to young boys…and not to mention the disgsting people who proclaim that “god hates f@gs”

For some devout people their Religion demands acts of violence be done in its name:

Let us assume that we have a foreign state that is formally atheist, having banned religion in all its forms, and that atheist state defines one of it’s ethnic subgroups as being sub-human - then starts to implement a programme of genocide against that ethnic sub-group. . Now let us assume that America and the UK (both being ostensibly Christian states) agree between themselves to invade that atheist foreign state in the name of Jesus Christ in order to save that ethnic sub-group from extermination. . Of course one can be certain that the atheist sate will resist the invasion and it is probable that military personnel from all three states, and also civilians in the invaded state, will be injured and killed as a result of that invasion. . The question now becomes equivalent to: . Is it right for a Christian state (like America or the UK) to invade another sovereign state in order to oppose crimes against humanity, in accordance with international law, and thus protect defenceless human beings from arbitrary annihilation, and if so should they do it in the name of Jesus Christ who (according to the Bible) said:

“… Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. …” __ Matthew 10 v34.

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– Best wishes - Majikthise. .

Because it is all we know. Remember when God wipe out the egyptians? and then he got angry with the israelites that he save for being ungrateful and stiff necked with their calf of Gold. Will Moses begged God and eventually saved them from God only to fall prey to the same ungrateful behavior so he killed them anyway in the name of God. God dint have a problem with that. The only thing God had a problem with is when Moses disobeyed his instruction and lost his temper. So God banished him. The Bible screams war and killing and technically we will never learn good without seeing evil. It is the same freedom and slavery that people are fighting for and against now. Look at Egypt, Russia, China etc. They all use religion because it is the power that holds them together. Sometimes it is Race, Family and sometimes it is Class. Religion is just the strongest way of gathering people now and ever since.

What has one got to do with the other? The U.S. keeps waging war in the world to spread democracy (or give democracy, or whatever excuse they want to use for being in Iraq). Democracy is apparently important. Actually one could argue the more important something is, the more it is worth fighting for.

Often the cause of conflict is greed or lust for power and religion is simply a tool used to justify and inspire the masses to fight. People are much more willing to put their life on the line if they believe it is what their deity demands and that they will be rewarded in an afterlife. I believe you answer your own question. Acts of cruelty and violence occur because religion is so important in our lives.

Agreed with filletofspam & Ty

Personally I don’t believe religion is important, but it depend son who you ask. Why the acts of violence committed in it’s name, simple. Because it is so important, religion is used to justify indignant acts carried out by a person and a tool to encourage people to do what a person(or people) may veiw fit to do even though it’s wrong.

I’d argue that economic ideology becomes equivalent to religion. During the cold war the capitalists wanted to convert the entire world to capitalism while the communists wanted to convert the entire world to communism.

Though people are religious…. we are still humans. Typically it is for a greedy purpose, but knowing that they can back it up on religion. Because if someone was to say it is God’s will to slaughter the innocent and spread mass chaos and people believed him…. then it’s easy for someone to look at this religion to blame, when it is really some greedy person/people using God’s name for their own selfish purpose.

The US is not a christian country. It is a country with a majority of christians, but our government is secular. We so far have never engaged in a war in the name of religion. Some might argue Iraq was because god supposedly told dubya to invade Iraq, but that war was over oil and greed. And even though the UK has a state spansered religion, it has been a long time since they went to war for a christian cause.

True, and that is why I used the word “ostensibly” in: “… Now let us assume that America and the UK (both being ostensibly Christian states) …”

My dictionary definition is as follows ostensibly adv apparently but not really: apparently for a particular reason, but not really for that reason

I had to make some assumptions (as I stated) that were not necessarily factually accurate in order to answer the question.

The fact that America may formally separate religion and state does not alter the fact that many (if not most) American soldiers will pray to their God before going in to battle, and believe that they are serving God’s purpose in doing so. ….. I happened to use the Christian religion for the ad hoc descriptive purposes because American society as a whole (and presumably that includes the military personnel) is nearly 80% Christian (by their own definitions).

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