RELIGION AND VIOLENCE

Why?

Exploring Religion and Violence

Five Reasons for Concern:

• Existential Reasons

• Philosophic/theological Reasons

• Doctrinal Reasons

• Social/Political/Economic Reasons

• Physiological Reasons

Existential Reasons Contributing to Violence

The human existential dilemma:

We are, at the same time:

• Apart = possessing a separate, individual sense of self, i.e, the ego

• A part = possessing a sense of or longing for interconnection, wholeness, fulfillment, belonging, love

Religion and the Existential Dilemma

General observations about religion:

• What is most common in human experience is present, even magnified, in human religious activity.

• Religion represents the often desperate attempt to symbolically bridge the existential chasm between a part and apart.

Religion and Identity Formation

n Religion, at the most fundamental level, is about identity-formation.

n Identity formation answers profound life questions:

n Who am I?

n Why am I?

n Where am I?

n What do I do?

Religion and Relationship-Guidance

n Religion is also about relationship-guidance:

n Relationship questions are questions directed at THE OTHER:

n Who are you?

n How should I relate to you?

n Why are you different from me?

n Are you good or evil?

Violence and Identity Formation

n Religion is about identity formation

The origins of violence are found in a particular and common variety of identity formation:

• the creation of THE OTHER

• Imagining ourselves apart from an other make us feel a part of our own group; separation creates unity.

Philosophic and Theological Reasons for Violence

The Other as Evil:

• Ontological dualism = a philosophy that divides the world into opposing, antagonistic forces; good v. evil.

• Star Wars Theology = “God” is on the side of the Good people; the Other, therefore, must be the Bad people.

• “The Axis of Evil” must perish!!

Doctrinal Reasons for Violence

n Exclusivity = “our sacred text tells us that our way is the ONLY WAY!

n Apocalypticism = the “old, evil world” must be destroyed; the “new, good world” can only be realized after a period of terrible violence.

n “Chosen-ness” = God chooses one people over any other

n Totalism = total commitment to the belief system is required; to err is to be evil!

Social/Political/Economic Reasons for Violence

n Social = dehumanizing the Other, then committing violent against them.

n Political = creating boundaries that define who is “in” and who is excluded; denying land and sovereignty to the Other.

n Economic = creating cosmic reasons to justify the economic demarcation between the “Haves” and the “Have-nots” – example: the caste system in India.

Physiological Reasons for Violence (and its reduction)

n Neuro-theology reveals that the human brain is “wired” for aggressive action when it functions in the “apart” mode.

n Meditation, prayer, chanting, and other spiritual practices actually still the part of the brain that triggers the “fight or flight” instinct while reinforcing a sense of oneness and peace.

The People’s Temple: The Jonestown Mass Suicide

n Rev. Jim Jones = Leader

n November 18, 1978: more than 900 followers commit “revolutionary suicide” in a jungle commune in the country of Guyana.

n Dr. Rebecca Moore = lost two sisters and a nephew in the violence.

n A glaring example of religion & violence that illustrates all of the above reasons.