Thread: Feelin' Safe?

Is one group more deadly than the other? Or does it not make a difference? Right now there might be a lot of bias against a certain group so try not to let recent events prejudice your decision. Reasons would be appreciated. If you would like to mention your pick for least deadly then feel free to do so also.

My choice is religious heads of state. For my least deadly I choose the atheists since they are themost likely not to get into a battle over religion.

This is a bad poll, because the options aren't all relating to one another. I chose "religious heads of state" mainly because any group that is "head of state" is going to be more deadly simply because heads of state have such power.

There are few atheists, jews, ot satanists who hold such positions of power which would let them be "more deadly."

You asked us not to be biased, but your entire question is, in fact, biased. I'm wishing now that I hadn't answered the poll .




Jon

there is no single group, who can be deemed the most dangerous, but religion as a whole is.
if the poll contained a extra option, Ie: is all religion dangerous. then it would be worthy to place a vote.

incidently atheism is not a group, it's a bunch of like minded individuals, they dont have a church or meeting place, as such. kind of like belonging to a book/video club.

We atheists and agnostics are fine living in caves with computer-covered walls near a Domino's Pizza for now. The Christians, Jews, and Muslims have to all kill each other off eventually, and well, then we'll take it from there.

id say all religius gruops

my view at the moment is islam, just because living in the uk, were getting more and more threats of violence, im not saying all islam is like it but there seems more violence from them than any other group at moment.

If you'd asked before 9/11 i would have said catholics cause of ira, but now its islam, and these are individuals born in uk with no head of state to push them into their actions, but there religious text or locan imams(if thats how you spell it)

but as i said its not all muslims, cause thats wrong to assume

To try to pin the blame for violence on religion or followers of religion is to totally miss every lesson acquired from history, anthropology, archaeology, ethology, primatology, psychology, political science, indeed anything that addresses the human condition.

Humans are tribal animals with a loose heirarchical organisation. It is loose in the sense that individuals can move within the heirarchy, up or down. Those higher up have benefits in terms of living conditions and oppportunities to reproduce. [Let's hear it for the selfish gene.]

This creates a drive for control and for power that extends and deepens as the size of the human group enlarges. Any and all mechanisms will be used to promote the resulting power struggles. Religion is simply one of these tools. In its absence the violence would be just as great, the superficial rationale would be different, the underlying drives would be the same.

captaincaveman is right

*Sigh.*

We are almost in the Space Age, and we still have tribes.

yes, its sad

We wouldn't be in the space age if we didn't have tribes. Rocketry developed as a consequence of WWII. It was applied in space exploration as a consequence of the Cold War. Both were expressions of tribalism.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

To try to pin the blame for violence on religion or followers of religion is to totally miss every lesson acquired from history, anthropology, archaeology, ethology, primatology, psychology, political science, indeed anything that addresses the human condition.

Humans are tribal animals with a loose heirarchical organisation. It is loose in the sense that individuals can move within the heirarchy, up or down. Those higher up have benefits in terms of living conditions and oppportunities to reproduce. [Let's hear it for the selfish gene.]

This creates a drive for control and for power that extends and deepens as the size of the human group enlarges. Any and all mechanisms will be used to promote the resulting power struggles. Religion is simply one of these tools. In its absence the violence would be just as great, the superficial rationale would be different, the underlying drives would be the same.

i see what your saying, but islam is different from buddism or hinduism, you never see buddhist extremists(not yet :wink: )

If you look at devout followers of a religion and they follow the text or mi-interpret it. then that religion has caused the problem

Why is islam attacking the west? what causes a british citizens to attack their own people and take their own life because of his disagreement with british foreign policy, why, because it is written in the koran to fight for muslims wherever they may be as they see islam as one big organism.

tribalism maybe, but written in religious text make it religion surely

becuase they say we are unbelivers. therefor not worthy living. But they arent worthy living with such thoughts.

why buddhists dont ahve extremists is becuase when they open their mouth nobody understands them and therefor either just consider them crackpots or blahas, therefor isnt offended and want them dead, and when no one wants anything against them they have no reason going on everybody else

there was a religious leader from lebanon on al-jazera chat show who said, once israel is wiped out they will then move to turkey and then move west wards, that's what your up against, they are not happy to live and let live. they want everywhere to be an islamic state under strict sharia rule.

don't see that from any other religion at moment, can't speak for the past as here and now is all that matters and i know there were the crusades and hitlers genocide etc. But here and now the only religion that has the "our religion or else" mentality is islam.

Its something i cant see going away for a long time

What a world we live in

I think that if they dont change their way of thinking rapidly we shall turn the entire middle east into one gigantic life less radioactive dessert

if they change mind and stop terrorising us they can live as they allways have

Originally Posted by Jon

This is a bad poll, because the options aren't all relating to one another. I chose "religious heads of state" mainly because any group that is "head of state" is going to be more deadly simply because heads of state have such power.

I agree. Except that a "religious head of state" does not have to be truly religious in order to be dangerous. Just by putting on the "clothes" of religion he can get religious people to blindly support him. Too much uncritical support of a head of state can be a blank check to commit any number of evil things. Then again you can leave off "religious" altogether and just say "heads of state", for the thing that really makes them dangerous is power.

Originally Posted by Jon

There are few atheists, jews, ot satanists who hold such positions of power which would let them be "more deadly."

I could point out communists heads of state as a counterexample. But the truth be told, it was their blind ideological approach to the world that made them dangerous not their atheism. However the fact that their blind ideological approach was an atheistic and anti-religious one made them particularly dangerous to religious people.

Originally Posted by Jon

You asked us not to be biased, but your entire question is, in fact, biased. I'm wishing now that I hadn't answered the poll .

I get that. I read this poll and found it completely ridiculous. Just as a joke, I considered responding with a complaint that they left out the option of:
WASP atheistic Jewish heads of state with ties to the Islamic fundamentalists

but yeah the joke is pretty lame so I didn't. Oh well, I guess I just did. Sorry.

But then found that some of replies were interesting in their own right.....

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

To try to pin the blame for violence on religion or followers of religion is to totally miss every lesson acquired from history, anthropology, archaeology, ethology, primatology, psychology, political science, indeed anything that addresses the human condition.

Humans are tribal animals with a loose heirarchical organisation. It is loose in the sense that individuals can move within the heirarchy, up or down. Those higher up have benefits in terms of living conditions and oppportunities to reproduce. [Let's hear it for the selfish gene.]

This creates a drive for control and for power that extends and deepens as the size of the human group enlarges. Any and all mechanisms will be used to promote the resulting power struggles. Religion is simply one of these tools. In its absence the violence would be just as great, the superficial rationale would be different, the underlying drives would be the same.

Now there you go Ophiolite attacking the standard accepted myths of modern society. You are going to send us back to the dark ages if you keep that up.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Now there you go Ophiolite attacking the standard accepted myths of modern society. You are going to send us back to the dark ages if you keep that up.

Can't send us back to where we never left. :?