An Israeli and a Palestinian went to see God. They asked whether there would ever be a permanent peace between their two peoples. "Of course there will," replied God. "But it won't be in my time."
RELIGION/POLITICS - Call it an atheist joke if you want to, but watching two religious groups fight over who owns the "holy city" of Jerusalem is both saddening and depressing. For the people involved in the current conflict in Israel, in which 257 children have been killed by Israel's bombs and artillery fire it is simply horrific.In North America we stand back and thank our proverbial lucky stars we're not in that mess. Religions and war have a long history together and atheists are fond of pointing it out... and none is a better example of the interplay between war and religion than Israel and Palestine.
Since Israel's inception in 1948 it has been in a near constant state of religious war. What you have is two religious groups that are xenophobic of other religions, who view other religions as a threat to their own identity and culture.In North America these people tolerate each other because they realize they're a minority, and they have embraced multiculturalism and freedom of religion. But in Israel-Palestine everyone is paranoid about being attacked by religious fanatics.
And calling them religious fanatics doesn't help either. They get upset if you refer to either group as such. To the semi-religious people in North America however the kind of fanaticism we see coming out of Israel is scary.And its not just Jews and Muslims. Christians are pretty damn scary too when they start toting their guns around and preaching about attacking Iran in the name of Jesus.
Maybe its the heat. Christianity, Islam and Judaism all came from the Middle East. Does it fry their brains to the point that they start to do crazy things?
We already know heat waves cause crime waves. The heat tends to make poor people/criminals desperate and they go on crime sprees. In the winter people are more likely to stay indoors and avoid making trouble. The difference is most noticeable in countries closer to the arctic or antarctic. Canada for example sees a dramatic drop in crime rates during the winter.So would it be much of a stretch to stay the heat tends to do weird things to people's brains in general? Look at all the wars currently going on in the world. They're all near the equator and in rather hot countries.
So will there ever be peace in Israel? Maybe, but like the joke says people will have to take god out of the equation first. As long as people keep killing in the name of god nothing will change.
Perhaps there is a valid point there. Perhaps. Although you ignore the Balfour declaration, economic problems, political ends and back-door deals, and a dozen other factors which all play a part in war. However, if religion is the bad guy, why not go right back to what was done in the Soviet Union, right? Eliminate the counter-revolutionary propaganda, and everything falls into place. Without religion, it was a great success! There were no murders, no horrid outcomes, because the government took care of it all. No thanks. There were at least three genocides in the countries of the Warsaw pact, all involving these Abrahamic religions. I'm certain there were more, but what can I say? I've not finished reading the list of deaths for any one of these. Atheism, and anti-religious sentiment is just as much a problem as religious fanaticism. Saddam Hussein wasn't a very good Muslim. He was a warmonger... in the name of socialism. In the name of all of these things which you tout, he also killed millions. But you're right. Religion is the bad guy here. No worries about people like Hussein, no worries about the 100,000,000 killed in Communist countries, in the name of atheism, and preventing religious conflict. (And this is only the past 80 years! Imagine what the next ones will be like!) God damn the religious, right?
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