Any hope of a lawsuit against religion?

[Hammer Britannia]

How dare people vote for someone who agrees with them. People in the bible belt were people voting for a candidate hold believed in their values, it wasn't them signing a contract with god saying that if you vote for this guy he/she will purge the infidels.

I'm bolding the main point this time. The one you seem to have ignored.

I mean, the countries you pointed out in your OP seem to have no problem fighting wars in the Middle East, killing scores of civilians and soldiers alike. Your counties have no problem with causing the world's most dangerous environmental disaster in human history. Your countries seem to have no problem becoming increasingly controlling and authoritarian towards their citizenry...

[Nanatsu no Tsuki]

I think the argument is backwards...if anything, a less stable and impoverished environment is going to lead to a flourishing of religion because in many cases that's the only stable national organization available, and most likely the least corrupt as well. It also provides a source of hope and community in the face of these circumstances.

I wouldn't say that it's backwards necessarily, but I actually did consider what you're saying as I was composing my last post.

It's possible that you can attribute both the high rates of religiosity and the high levels of violence to poverty. The religiosity because there is very little else around that inspires any hope, and conversely, in a nation where basic needs are easy to meet, the perceived need for a god is reduced. But I think we must also attribute the violence largely to poverty, as people can recognize what they need, and if they're unable to purchase it or otherwise provide it for themselves, they must obtain it by less legal means. And even if the violence may not always provide immediate relief of poverty, even so things like gang violence still find their root in poverty.

It’s likely that it has everything to do with economics. Poorer places- hopelessness, religion. Wealthier places- basic needs met, lack of religion.

[Idzequitch]

And you want to sue all religions because of one book?

I'll admit it, Christianity is filled with contradictions like that, but you know what? There are 5000+ religions in this world. Along with this, you have yet to explain how the fact people died over religon deserves special treatment over any kind of violent deaths

WW2 killed more than 75 million, the war before it killed millions, the conquests of Rome killed millions, the colonization of both the Americas and Africa killed millions.

Why do the monarchs of Europe get a pass while Shamanistic religions don't? Why shouldn't Communism, Fascism, and Capitalism get sued when Hinduism gets a lawsuit? Why doesn't all tribalism get punished while religion does? Humans are violent and tribal, and that is not a fault of religon.

Gee, if only the OP mentioned factors other than tribalism or something.

Nevertheless, religion is one of many forms of tribalism. Nationalism is another... and it, too, correlates with religion as evidenced by Trump votes in the Bible belt. Easier to be nationalistic when you think God's on your country's side than otherwise.

The only way any of this is a defense of religion is if you think religion's the only thing holding even worse forms of tribalism back. As in, worse by a margin that more than offsets what I mentioned in the OP.

I'm going to reiterate something. Correlation does not imply causaton. You've demonstrated a loose correlation. But why should I believe that religion is the cause of the violence? Why do the "peaceful" irreligious nations engage in violence elsewhere in the world?

[Regional Defence Council of Aragon]

You can't sue a concept or an idea. On top of this religion in itself isn't the problem it's the extremists who take it too far.

[The Holy Therns]

Me, I'd like to file a lawsuit against rainy days.

[LimaUniformNovemberAlpha]

This one doesn't distinguish New from Old testaments, but ctrl+f of "Jesus" shows dozens of results.

I found one which would have his teachings, most of them are about the story of events in his life.

If it's the "divinely inspired" word of God as it's often made out to be, neither the "teachings" NOR the "events" should contradict.

[Europa Undivided]

Ugh. I was wondering when r/atheism was going to rear its ugly head.

First of all, there is no board of representatives for you to sue. Maybe you can just sue the CEO of Communism? Oh wait, no.

Second, there are many more factors contributing to the lack of peace. For one, Poland and Vietnam are both highly religious and yet they score high in the peace index. The main reason for the lack of peace is corruption and a lack of resources. Religion has barely anything to do with (except for the Middle East where we have Islamists). However, even with the Middle East's case, it has more to do with secular powers messing with ethnic borders and the like (Sykes-Picot Agreement, *cough*) rather than the religious makeup of the reason.

Third, "peaceful" irreligious nations contribute to violence elsewhere. Let's not even get to the interventions in the Middle East.

Fourth, religion being less important in affluent nations (well, most of them *laughs in Polish*) has more to do with people feeling that they don't need God in affluence.

And fifth, less than 7% of all wars in history were religious wars in the loosest sense. Less than 1% were waged by Christian powers, so y'all can stop yapping about how bad the Crusades were. There are blips compared to most other conflicts.

[Europa Undivided]

I found one which would have his teachings, most of them are about the story of events in his life.

If it's the "divinely inspired" word of God as it's often made out to be, neither the "teachings" NOR the "events" should contradict.

Said contradictions are the result of misunderstanding.

[The Lone Alliance]

You can't sue an idea.

The idea of suing religion is ridiculous- how would that even work? Besides, religion in general isn't the problem, it's extremism.

Which is why there are passages in the bible itself that promote violence either on behalf of god or directly due to god

Because for the most part like all ideas if you don't fight for your idea you'll find your idea killed by those who hold ideas where they are willing to kill for their idea.

There likely was a time when there were religions that were completely 100% peaceful.

And those religions were likely wiped out by the ones who weren't.

[Neu Estovakia]

Which is why there are passages in the bible itself that promote violence either on behalf of god or directly due to god

Because for the most part like all ideas if you don't fight for your idea you'll find your idea killed by those who hold ideas where they are willing to kill for their idea.

There likely was a time when there were religions that were completely 100% peaceful.

And those religions were likely wiped out by the ones who weren't.

Not all of them....A good number still exist.

[Ethel mermania]

I'm going to ignore all the hysteria and cut straight to the heart of the matter.

What centralized board of directors will represent "religion" in the suit? Who are the common owner(s) of "religion" that you could sue it/them?

The catholic church is getting the crap used out of it for deeds its priests committed.

[Ethel mermania]

....you kinda need a legal person to be the Defendant, so who is the legal person being sued? Islam, Inc. or Judaism, Inc., Christianity, Inc., or Buddhism, Inc. isn't really a thing, you know. I guess Vatican City is a legal person in international law, but suing Vatican City in any national court would be barred under State immunity and par in parem non habet imperium.

Anyways, answer's clearly NO.

Each of those has corporate presence in the states. That corporation, I think can be sued.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Your maps don’t correlate.

Also, religion has no legal personality.

[Cekoviu]

To enhance the statistical detail of the premise, here is the results of a linear regression test on the 2019 Global Peace Index data vs the results of Gallup's 2009 religiosity survey:

Code: Select all

Coefficients:
                    Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)   
(Intercept)           1.3577     0.1174  11.565  < 2e-16 ***
rel_gpi$Religiosity   0.9921     0.1501   6.609 7.25e-10 ***
---
Signif. codes:  0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1

Residual standard error: 0.4403 on 142 degrees of freedom
  (19 observations deleted due to missingness)
Multiple R-squared:  0.2352,   Adjusted R-squared:  0.2299
F-statistic: 43.68 on 1 and 142 DF,  p-value: 7.245e-10

Key points:

• p << 0.05, which means that there is a statistically significant correlation between religiosity and GPI
• R² = 0.2352, which means that this model (using religiosity as a descriptor, that is) accounts for 23.52% of variation in GPI compared to the mean

Important issues:

• 0.2352 is not a great R² value. The most likely best-case scenario for something sociological like this would be 0.5.
• Not all countries were included here because the GPI excludes microstates and the Gallup survey used is missing some extra countries along with those microstates.
• The Gallup survey is from more than 10 years ago (and I don't think there are newer global religiosity surveys), which means it's not necessarily accurate compared to today and this could either inflate or underestimate the degree of relationship between these variables.

R source code
Data CSV

Have fun.

[Cekoviu]

Oh, and a lawsuit against religion is utterly absurd. I think it's still fair to consider the statistics and discuss whether religion is a predictor of turmoil, which I believe it is (albeit not a definitive one).

[Cekoviu]

Your maps don’t correlate.

Yes they do. Making a point about correlation using two maps compared side-by-side is terrible, but there is a correlation.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Any hope of a lawsuit against Communism?

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Your maps don’t correlate.

Yes they do. Making a point about correlation using two maps compared side-by-side is terrible, but there is a correlation.

Correlation does not equal causation. Those violent regions are violent because they're poor, unstable, uneducated, and corrupt. Naturally in such conditions people would look to higher powers in hope that one day their prayers will be answered since their governments evidently can't answer them.

[Cekoviu]

Any hope of a lawsuit against Communism?

Communism has/has had leaders, at least in individual countries, unlike the general concept of religion. A better parallel would be "any hope of a lawsuit against politics"?

[Cekoviu]

Yes they do. Making a point about correlation using two maps compared side-by-side is terrible, but there is a correlation.

Correlation does not equal causation. Those violent regions are violent because they're poor, unstable, uneducated, and corrupt. Naturally in such conditions people would look to higher powers in hope that one day their prayers will be answered since their governments evidently can't.

I don't disagree and you make a great point. I haven't made any arguments saying there is causation, if you look closely.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Correlation does not equal causation. Those violent regions are violent because they're poor, unstable, uneducated, and corrupt. Naturally in such conditions people would look to higher powers in hope that one day their prayers will be answered since their governments evidently can't.

I don't disagree and you make a great point. I haven't made any arguments saying there is causation, if you look closely.

My mistake then. Apologies.

[Cekoviu]

I don't disagree and you make a great point. I haven't made any arguments saying there is causation, if you look closely.

My mistake then. Apologies.

Dear god, we're on the internet! You can't apologize here, you absolute madman!

[Aureumterra]

I wish I could sue abstract ideas, Bad Luck will have no chance against my lawyer!

[United Massachusetts]

People fight over ideas, good and bad, all the time. For example:

Socialism: Russian Revolution
Democracy: American Revolution
Zionism: Israeli War of Independence

I myself support two of those ideologies, for the record (democracy and Zionism). I'm sure you support at least one.

The point is, however, that just because people fight over an idea doesn't make that idea necessarily bad. Since religion is an idea, we should expect people to fight over it.

[The Hindustani State]

This thread reminds me of the plot of the Indian movie OMG, where the main character, after his anti-religious behavior and losing his livelihood in an earthquake, and being told by his insurance that his policy wouldn’t pay for “acts of God”, decides to sue all Gods. And where does the lawsuit goes to? To every religious institution in India: Hindu, Catholic (Christian), and Muslim.

That’s what I was thinking. I loved that movie, it really triggered many of the scam gurus in India