Hindus

[SuburbanFarmer]

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.

True points. But religion is a supercharger to dehumanization. It's far easier to say "God hates them", than have to justify your conflict based on a number of seemingly logical grounds.

And how on EARTH was the mongol conquest not ethnic?? Think about that for a minute.

"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".

Hardly. The vast majority of the Constitution could be logically justified without any influence from religion or superstition.

Art, music, and food are most certainly rational things, though. They are expressions of higher thought, not superstition - though religion was the only allowable inspiration for a long, long time in Western society.

I'll grant you that I could have worded it better (as usual) - "any action based on the supernatural"

[SuburbanFarmer]

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.

No education was allowable outside of the Church. And yes, in many places, it was punishable by death to own a copy of the Bible. Translation out of Latin was heresy for centuries.

You already know this.

Next, you'll argue that it was the feudal lords that maintained this system, not the Church. But we both know why they did that, and who directed it.

[nmoore63]

The Russian and Chinese communists sure were able to get many millions of man armies without any religion.....

[SuburbanFarmer]

The Russian and Chinese communists sure were able to get many millions of man armies without any religion.....

Fear of the Other/Imminent Attack. The Chinese and Russians are what they are, thanks to the steppe hordes. Without that pressure, I doubt they'd be anything like the totalitarian regimes they represent now.

[DBTrek]

As usual, only western civilization and tradition is evil - Stalin and Mao had their “reasons”.

[nmoore63]

The Russian and Chinese communists sure were able to get many millions of man armies without any religion.....

Fear of the Other/Imminent Attack. The Chinese and Russians are what they are, thanks to the steppe hordes. Without that pressure, I doubt they'd be anything like the totalitarian regimes they represent now.

Huh?

China has been like they are for 2000 years.
Whether they are Tang legions dominating the steppe, or Song mandrins getting dominated by the steppe....

[Fife]

Steppe hordes. 'n' shit.

[SuburbanFarmer]

The Russian and Chinese communists sure were able to get many millions of man armies without any religion.....

Fear of the Other/Imminent Attack. The Chinese and Russians are what they are, thanks to the steppe hordes. Without that pressure, I doubt they'd be anything like the totalitarian regimes they represent now.

Huh?

China has been like they are for 2000 years.
Whether they are Tang legions dominating the steppe, or Song mandrins getting dominated by the steppe....

Exactly my point. They haven't changed much, since the hordes came a-knockin'. They built a bigass wall, to stop them taking their shit. They ended up with a Mongol dynasty, at one point.

Yet their genetics are 92% of a single ethnic group - the Han https://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/nationality/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_dynasty

The hordes came and knocked their shit over, then kept coming for 1,000 years. Eventually, the Chinese achieved incredible levels of technology and societal organization, but at the price of personal freedom. Survival mechanisms, when under threat.

[BjornP]

True points. But religion is a supercharger to dehumanization. It's far easier to say "God hates them", than have to justify your conflict based on a number of seemingly logical grounds.

And how on EARTH was the mongol conquest not ethnic?? Think about that for a minute.

Same reason Roman conquests weren't ethnic conquests. They were empire builders. As long as you submitted and subjected yourself to the will of the Khan-il-Khan, you were left alone. They slaughtered people by the millions for not opening their city gates to them, not for belonging to the wrong ethnic group.

Hardly. The vast majority of the Constitution could be logically justified without any influence from religion or superstition.

Art, music, and food are most certainly rational things, though. They are expressions of higher thought, not superstition - though religion was the only allowable inspiration for a long, long time in Western society.

I'll grant you that I could have worded it better (as usual) - "any action based on the supernatural"

Human rights are as much a superstition or super-natural as gods-belief. There is no science that says all human beings have some "intrinsic" value by simply being human, which is the foundation of your constitution and most Western values today. "Inalienable" rights is also irrational, not based in science, not based in reason, based entirely in the sense, in the feeling that human beings have some sort of "natural" right.

That's not to say I disagree with having those rights, mind you. But to say that they are "logical", is silly. You have freedoms because you WANT to be free, not because the "natural" state of humanity is to be free or because the only rational choice for a human being is to let everyone else be as free as he himself is.

All in all, the entire idea that the validity of ideas in society should spring chiefly from how "rational" they are... is nonsense. It's an overestimatation of the usefulness of rationality in determining what's best for both society and the individual.

[SuburbanFarmer]

True points. But religion is a supercharger to dehumanization. It's far easier to say "God hates them", than have to justify your conflict based on a number of seemingly logical grounds.

And how on EARTH was the mongol conquest not ethnic?? Think about that for a minute.

Same reason Roman conquests weren't ethnic conquests. They were empire builders. As long as you submitted and subjected yourself to the will of the Khan-il-Khan, you were left alone. They slaughtered people by the millions for not opening their city gates to them, not for belonging to the wrong ethnic group.

Hardly. The vast majority of the Constitution could be logically justified without any influence from religion or superstition.

Art, music, and food are most certainly rational things, though. They are expressions of higher thought, not superstition - though religion was the only allowable inspiration for a long, long time in Western society.

I'll grant you that I could have worded it better (as usual) - "any action based on the supernatural"

Human rights are as much a superstition or super-natural as gods-belief. There is no science that says all human beings have some "intrinsic" value by simply being human, which is the foundation of your constitution and most Western values today. "Inalienable" rights is also irrational, not based in science, not based in reason, based entirely in the sense, in the feeling that human beings have some sort of "natural" right.

That's not to say I disagree with having those rights, mind you. But to say that they are "logical", is silly. You have freedoms because you WANT to be free, not because the "natural" state of humanity is to be free or because the only rational choice for a human being is to let everyone else be as free as he himself is.

All in all, the entire idea that the validity of ideas in society should spring chiefly from how "rational" they are... is nonsense. It's an overestimatation of the usefulness of rationality in determining what's best for both society and the individual.

Fair enough. A fully utilitarian society would be a nightmare, obviously. Which is why I regret not phrasing my statement differently.

But claiming that human beings have 'inalienable rights' is certainly not based on Scripture. It's an effort to make a genuine egalitarian society. It's also in the self-interest of the American Rebels to promote themselves as the most attractive government on earth, when rallying colonists to oppose a world empire.

And why not shoot for the moon? They'd crossed the planet, into unknown territory, and forged a society from The Great Nothing. Now they were about to reject the biggest naval superpower in history, and claim independence. The idealism inherent in that was simply carried over into their wishes for a new government.

If anything, the Constitution is quite rational - taking the best ideas from dusty old Europe, and rejecting the dogma of centuries past. There was really nothing less that would inspire people to die for it. Certainly not tax laws.