thread: 2007-02-26 : Exorcism followthrough
On 2007-03-05, Larry L wrote:
I think the whole "Atrocities committed in the name of God" versus "Atrocities committed in the name of atheism" debate is a red herring. Throughout much of history, religion used to be the primary criteria for how people defined who "We" are. In the modern era... not so much; people are more likely to affiliate along lines of nationality or political cause or whatever.
So of course people long ago used to commit their self-righteous evils in the name of religions, and people more recently did their evils in the name of non-theistic political ideologies. It really boils down to a larger issue of "Us vs. Them" tribalism.
J,
Why do you say Zen is "nonreligious"? Why don't you say that the concept of "religion" you were brought up with might be too narrowly-defined or restrictive to cope with the full breadth of human religious experience?
(I'm sincerely interested, because I'm aware of how Christianity does quite poorly in this particular area, but to my knowledge you weren't brought up Christian.)
