Hindus

[DBTrek]

In kooky progressive world - religions, religious charity, religious schools, religious outreach programs, sanctuary, religious orphanages, religious soup kitchens, religious artwork, religious moral teachings, etc,etc, all pale in comparison to the contributions of materialistic atheism.

[DBTrek]

I wouldn't get too worked up about Hindu's.

There is a reason they have been subjugated far more than they have had any sort of self rule.

Once you believe in reincarnation... its pretty difficult to get folks riled up enough about the present to rebel or conquer.

The Sikhs are legendary warriors. They were never really subjugated, to my knowledge, until the British came along.

You can get a lot of fight out of somebody that expects to come right back after death.

Sikhs aren’t Hindus.

[Fife]

I wouldn't get too worked up about Hindu's.

There is a reason they have been subjugated far more than they have had any sort of self rule.

Once you believe in reincarnation... its pretty difficult to get folks riled up enough about the present to rebel or conquer.

The Sikhs are legendary warriors. They were never really subjugated, to my knowledge, until the British came along.

You can get a lot of fight out of somebody that expects to come right back after death.

Sikhs aren’t Hindus.

Why are you so afraid of honest debate, DB?

Why you gotta always be stawwwmanning?

[SuburbanFarmer]

I wouldn't get too worked up about Hindu's.

There is a reason they have been subjugated far more than they have had any sort of self rule.

Once you believe in reincarnation... its pretty difficult to get folks riled up enough about the present to rebel or conquer.

The Sikhs are legendary warriors. They were never really subjugated, to my knowledge, until the British came along.

You can get a lot of fight out of somebody that expects to come right back after death.

Sikhs aren’t Hindus.

Huh... never knew that. I stand corrected. I thought Sikhs were a part of the Hindu caste system.

https://www.thoughtco.com/ways-that-sik ... sm-2992955

[Fife]

In kooky progressive world - religions, religious charity, religious schools, religious outreach programs, sanctuary, religious orphanages, religious soup kitchens, religious artwork, religious moral teachings, etc,etc, all pale in comparison to the contributions of materialistic atheism.

^^^^^ Enemy of the Immanent Golden Age. Kulak.

[nmoore63]

I wouldn't get too worked up about Hindu's.

There is a reason they have been subjugated far more than they have had any sort of self rule.

Once you believe in reincarnation... its pretty difficult to get folks riled up enough about the present to rebel or conquer.

The Sikhs are legendary warriors. They were never really subjugated, to my knowledge, until the British came along.

You can get a lot of fight out of somebody that expects to come right back after death.

.....

[SuburbanFarmer]

I wouldn't get too worked up about Hindu's.

There is a reason they have been subjugated far more than they have had any sort of self rule.

Once you believe in reincarnation... its pretty difficult to get folks riled up enough about the present to rebel or conquer.

The Sikhs are legendary warriors. They were never really subjugated, to my knowledge, until the British came along.

You can get a lot of fight out of somebody that expects to come right back after death.

.....

Please accept my act of contrition.

[nmoore63]

The correct count to my argument is....

But Gurkas.

But they are not a large enough segment of Hindu to counter the larger point.

[BjornP]

Based on my understanding of humanity.

But the ability to drum up million-man armies is directly proportional to the amount of religious motivation you can leverage against your society. The only other way that happens is through complete demonization of The Other, fear of imminent attack, or fear of scarcity. The tribe itself must be threatened somehow. It's historically been far, far too easy to mix God and State into a recruiting/motivational tool, for great evil.

Wrong. Your "feelz" may say that only religion can drum up million man armies, but history, ALL of history proves you wrong. Nearly all wars fought in the history of the planet have been non-religious in motivation. The religious ones have been more dramatic, surely, and more prone to great prose and heroic epics, but they've not been most numerous. The genocides of the Mongols were not religious, not even ethnic, and their victims were primarily civilians who did not make any political decisions for themselves. Yet they were one of history's greatest mass murderers.

The demonization of the Other you speak of, requires no religious component, at all. Never had. Racism isn't religious, wanting to destroy your enemies city, rape their children, sell them into slavery, has required no other competent than them not submitting to you.

"Is religion/spirituality only superstition?"
Organized religion is most certainly superstition. Any action without a rational basis is superstition.
I'd never oppose anyone's right to believe in the invisible spaghetti monster, so long as it doesn't infringe on others. But that infringement has been inherent in organized religion, throughout time.

"Any action without a rational basis", huh? That's pretty much your entire Constitution, and certainly your Bill of Rights, then. If you discard all the things in your society that has "no rational basis" as superstition, GCF, it's not just religion you'd have to wave goodbye to. Art. Music. Most forms of modern food. Designed clothes. Customized cars and other forms of transportation... Soooooo much of it that goes beyond, or that's opposed to, an "action with a basis in rationality".

[BjornP]

It's not as much of a factor now, in the developed world, but the third world still regularly holds mass slaughter as a tenet of their various faiths.

Just try to imagine where the West would be by now, without the Catholics sticking pokers up peoples' assholes for wrongthink. They enforced illiteracy for 1,000 years, just to maintain control. You want to pretend that that hasn't had an effect?

How did the Catholics "enforce illiteracy for 1000 years", GCF? Did they discourage people from reading the Bible on their own, or translating it into their own language? Yes. Is that "enforcing illiteracy"? No.