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Why people that are atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or etc can not get along. Why is there so much hate and animosity between the groups?
Differences can be a point of conflict. Particularly if you feel, and sometimes feeling this is just, that the other belief is in some way harmful.
There can also be fights within groups though. Protestant and Catholic disputes still sometimes lead to violence in parts of Latin America where a rising Pentecostalism argues with a traditional Catholicism. In Islam Sunni and Shi'ite conflicts occasionally flare up. Even among the Buddhists there have occasionally been fights among schools of Buddhism. I seem to recall a fight flaring among different Korean Buddhist groups only a few years ago. (Egad I guess it was actually more than a decade ago)
Irreligious philosophies also lead to fights and feuds on occasion. Different forms of Trotskyism have had bitter disputes amongst themselves. And Trotskyists were persecuted by Soviets. Randian Objectivism has had factional conflicts between say the Ayn Rand Institute and The Atlas Society. No violence, but it seems like they got cranky with each other at times.
Humans can be contentious, particularly about things they care about.
Still I think a fair amount of people are tolerant and fine. In real life, and even on some other websites, I've gotten along fine with Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, and so forth.
Where i work, we all seem to get along fine. Athiest, Muslim, Christian, Jewish. They all work here and you know, the matter of personal beliefs rarely if ever comes up.
Good Question. What will follow now will be a long drawn out answer from the Big Cat Himself. (Wake me when it is over)
I cannot speak for all religious people. I can only speak from my own experiences in religions. I would first point out that I have not encounter the general loathing of other religions in the company of Buddhists, who are taught self-acceptance along with social philanthropy.
BUT growing up in a Fundy church, I have found that my experience was not that that uncommon, speaking years with other former Christians and former Fundies.
TO start with, the Christian religion is built on self-loathing. Christianity teaches that humans are utter and complete failures, not even worth saving except for the grace of a creator deity, who out of love, steps in and offers some level of acceptance. Without all the dogma and legalism involved, many Christians suffer from low self esteem due to this upbringing.
Yes, they do. I have seen it.
Now think about this: All hate is self hate. Hatred of others begins with hatred of the self. Acceptance of others begins with acceptance of the self. A near impossible task for someone to then turn around and accept others when they are not even worthy of self love and self acceptance.
I would reference the works of Dr Theodore Rubin for further study. Compassion and Self Hate: An Alternative to Despair: Theodore I. Rubin: 9780684841991: Amazon.com: Books
So how deep does this go? Well, in church, where I learned to hate as a child, I remember talks about the evil communists, how we hated them because they wanted to destroy us and take our religious freedom away. (Not that anyone at that Baptist church had any freedom anyway, for that was gone the first day they became members there)
One Sunday school teacher talked about how much he "Hated Homosexuals" they should have no rights as humans. Another suggested, along with my father, that all mentally ill people "should be taken out and shot", which my parents, being more or less mentally ill by definition, would have to engage then in a form of hypocritical projected suicide to accomplish this idea. Our pastor, The one who was molesting his teenage daughter, openly hated minorities, especially Hispanics, but he hated catholics more, and just to be a tool, would send a van around the north side of the railroad tracks inviting people to come to church. This was not just to make him look like an evangelical patron, but this action probably MORE stemmed out of his disdain for the catholic church which was the only church on that side of town and popular with Hispanics. His idea was to coax people AWAY from that religion. And his loathing of himself and other religions was the impetus here.
Of course, hatred seemed to be preached more than love. Hatred of the Devil, the aforementioned communists, the evil Madelyn Murray O'Hare and even those people who have black skin and do not attend our church.
So with this projected hatred, we see in a group psychological model that self hatred can be focused outward onto anyone who is different. It is another form of prejudice. But since it stems from inner turmoil the results can often turn hostile.
And it can happen within a religious group as well. When one of the town pastors got sent away for Income Tax fraud, the people from the other churches banded together and refused to help anyone who was associated with his church.
Again, this is, in the end, self hatred at work.
Now I have not encountered this in Buddhist circles, and I am not advertising Buddhism here. But we do incorporate a lot of Zen principals into psychotherapy, quite simply because they work. They work by teaching a person to love and accept them-self, by building self esteem without the need for an external definition. By achieving this, a person is able to move upward to-wards optimal health, and those who are healthy in such a matter will not be the ones with volatile fears which will then be manifest through religious thinking. Anyone who is self confident and self accepting will not have such issues with what someone else believes or what religion they follow.
Why people that are atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or etc can not get along. Why is there so much hate and animosity between the groups?
People have created huge egos that cause them to think they are right and everyone else is wrong. The bickering goes back thousands of years to ancient cults, and is linked to survivalism, materialism, and other worldly concepts that people refuse to relegate.
The simple fact that just during my lifetime I have seen the world population grow from 2.295 billion to 7 billion. Nearly tripled in just 72 years. Seems like most people have to get along in order to have that much of an increase in population.
Why people that are atheist, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or etc can not get along. Why is there so much hate and animosity between the groups?
Most get along just fine. We do not agree with each others ideas in many cases, but do not be keen to misconstrue simple disagreement and failure to believe the ideas others have perpetrated as being "hate and animosity".
As what people would call an "atheist" I have evaluated many of the ideas of " Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or etc" and found them to be entirely unsubstantiated, speculative nonsense. I therefore make it a point to highlight this fact.
That in no way means I "hate" or have "animosity" towards those groups as a whole. Attacking an idea is not the same as attacking a person or people. Respect people, not ideas, would be a good motto to live by.
I believe that the world hasn't really been "connected" until about 25 years ago. With the mass production of electronics and access to the internet has really pushed the world to become a smaller place. It sucks that we are still separated and still have conflict, but we have all been separated for hundreds of years. It's going to take another 100 years for any real progress to be made. We are stuck in the middle of this progress. Sorry.
Good Question. What will follow now will be a long drawn out answer from the Big Cat Himself. (Wake me when it is over)
I cannot speak for all religious people. I can only speak from my own experiences in religions. I would first point out that I have not encounter the general loathing of other religions in the company of Buddhists, who are taught self-acceptance along with social philanthropy.
BUT growing up in a Fundy church, I have found that my experience was not that that uncommon, speaking years with other former Christians and former Fundies.
TO start with, the Christian religion is built on self-loathing.
In your opinion or experience. This is kind of a problem I see in many here. Thinking your own subjective experience or opinion is some kind of fact.
True Christianity doesn't teach that people are inherently good. And many theologians lean toward the idea we would have no good in us, but for God. However the "total depravity" self-hate thing is more specifically Calvinism and Calvinism is not now, nor ever was, the dominant force in Christianity.
However I long ago realized the kind of self-hatred I sometimes had was clearly counterproductive to being a good Christian per my understanding of that. Even if it maybe came from my, occasionally warped, understanding of the faith. Thinking little of yourself, or realizing your littleness, really shouldn't be the same as any active hatred. I remember when I first encountered the idea that "love your neighbor as yourself" meant you should love yourself too I thought it sounded like the kind of narcissistic self-love interpretation I heard too much of in the secular world as a child of the 1980s. But I think now it's something different or can be. We're to love people so it makes sense that will include ourselves. I feel it doesn't, or shouldn't, mean elevating love of self or Humanity into something we're not. Whatever the source we clearly do, individually and as a species, do many things wrong. But outright hatred is not necessary and can be counterproductive. The kind of "contempt" spoken of in much Christian literature may even mean more "think little of."
I don't hate myself. I don't even really hate that I'm a person with same-sex attractions. I hope to, or try to, aspire to be better than what I am. To realize that I am weak and imperfect so need to struggle to be better. Even if I never entirely succeed. Hating the self can lead to a kind of despair and belief in your own damnation, which is something Christian philosophers and theologians for centuries warned against.
That being said I grant that many atheists left religions as children, or teens, so retain a kind of child's or adolescents image of Christianity. So it's not false so much as incomplete. What you're saying may well be true for your experience or the denomination you started in. Sadly many who even stay remain rather immature. (Also sadly you were Baptist. Don't want to bash all Baptists, but some of them have developed a weird closed-off anti-intellectual Christianity which maybe discourages any advance) Still it is possible to have a more mature understanding of religions and maybe that can be helpful in getting along.
Indeed they can. My first experience of this was as a child when two of my friends fell out. They were VERY close guys indeed. They could not spend enough time with each other. Or express their mutual affection often or deeply enough.
One of the cute things they had at the time was a shared imaginary friend. They used to use this to express their mutual love. The imaginary friend would spend the night in one or other of their houses. The next day we would hear things like "Oh he said how much he missed you last night" or "He said how great you are at X last night" (whatever X was at the time). It was painfully cute.
However one day one of them off hand mentioned the color of the imaginary friends hair. The other guy disagreed and said it was another color. Alas since the friend was entirely imaginary there was no way to resolve the conflict. There was no test to perform or evidence to present which could settle the arguement either way. In the end it turned from a disagreement, to shouting, to violence, to the ending of what was and should still be a powerful friendship.
Fast forward a few years and map this onto my view of religion. An answer to the OPs question lies in this and I would add something to your point above. Differences can be a point of conflict but entirely irreconcilable differences are much, much, worse and can lead to all manner of horror.
There simply is no evidence, argument, data or reasoning on offer to even suggest there IS A god entity. As such when differences of opinion arise with regard to some attribute, aspect, opinion or other feature assigned to this imaginary entity those differences are.... much like the color of that imaginary friends hair.... often irreconcilable.
Where the mutual exchange of ideas breaks down anger, intolerance, suspicion, hatred and even violence follow all too often and for me... and as an answer to the OP.... this is one of the most insidious dangers of religion. World views that are not mappable in any way onto reality... such as much of Christianity, Islam and so forth... foster these horrific outcomes all too readily.
This problem is only compounded by religions which teach not only that their path is the "Right" or "True" one but that in fact getting it wrong can lead to eternal torment, hell or some other kind of punishment or "missing out" on some aspect of paradise. Whereas the irreconcilable color of a mutually shared imaginary friends hair is mundane and incidental.... getting these points of differences "correct" and reconciled is elevated by such religions past even the point of being at the level of importance of "Life and death" but to the point of being relevant to the eternal well being of your very soul. And the very souls of your loved ones and progeny.
So the OP wants to know why such groups find it hard to "get along"? For me it is obvious. Give people irreconcilable differences and lend them the impression that reconciliation of those differences can influence the fate of eternal souls.... and you create an atmosphere and recipe for disaster.
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