{"id":247,"date":"2009-02-22T01:12:52","date_gmt":"2009-02-22T01:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html"},"modified":"2009-02-22T01:12:52","modified_gmt":"2009-02-22T01:12:52","slug":"does-religion-cause-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html","title":{"rendered":"does religion cause violence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunny Hundal makes a very insightful comment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Conflict has always been part of human nature; what we have are codes of conduct that make sense and sound good in theory but always end up being fitted around people’s own political or personal agendas. So, attributing violence or peace to religious belief misses the target. It makes more sense to separate them to illustrate how religion is often used as a cover to disguise political agendas.<\/p>\n

This is why a healthy debate on the interaction between faith and violence is worth having – it might even go some way towards dispelling the notion that religion is simply a source of conflict.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I find this very helpful. Religion and violence as cause and effect is indeed a flawed model; Rather, both are human activities that serve a self-purpose, and it is the interplay between them that we need to explore further. <\/p>\n

Related – a critical assessment<\/a> at Talk Islam. However, as I point out in the thread, I think that the main thrust of Sunny’s argument has a great deal of value. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunny Hundal makes a very insightful comment: Conflict has always been part of human nature; what we have are codes of conduct that make sense and sound good in theory but always end up being fitted around people’s own political or personal agendas. So, attributing violence or peace to religious belief misses the target. It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26,184,190],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-gates-of-ijtihad","tag-politics","tag-religion","tag-violence"],"yoast_head":"\ndoes religion cause violence? - City of Brass<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"does religion cause violence? - City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sunny Hundal makes a very insightful comment: Conflict has always been part of human nature; what we have are codes of conduct that make sense and sound good in theory but always end up being fitted around people’s own political or personal agendas. So, attributing violence or peace to religious belief misses the target. It…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"City of Brass\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-22T01:12:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Aziz Poonawalla\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"does religion cause violence? - City of Brass","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"does religion cause violence? - City of Brass","og_description":"Sunny Hundal makes a very insightful comment: Conflict has always been part of human nature; what we have are codes of conduct that make sense and sound good in theory but always end up being fitted around people’s own political or personal agendas. So, attributing violence or peace to religious belief misses the target. It…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html","og_site_name":"City of Brass","article_published_time":"2009-02-22T01:12:52+00:00","author":"Aziz Poonawalla","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html","name":"does religion cause violence? - City of Brass","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-22T01:12:52+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-22T01:12:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/2009\/02\/does-religion-cause-violence.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"does religion cause violence?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/","name":"City of Brass","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Aziz Poonawalla","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/87dfd5533a0222456bb5ad6eaf152fbb","name":"Aziz Poonawalla","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a95\/a95f814e7f2984c887f3b03aed357433x96.jpg","caption":"Aziz Poonawalla"},"description":"Aziz Poonawalla is a member of the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community, and currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. City of Brass is his weblog, which was founded in 2002 under the name UNMEDIA. He is a co-founder of the annual Brass Crescent Awards. The name City of Brass refers to the Story of the City of Brass in the Thousand and One Nights, and the poem by Rudyard Kipling of the same name: Here was a people whom, after their works, thou shalt see wept over for their lost dominion; And in this palace is the last information respecting lords collected in the dust. -- Thousand and One Nights, Story of the City of Brass IN A land that the sand overlays, the ways to her gates are untrod, A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God, Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their fall, And of these is a story written: but Allah Alone knoweth all! -- Rudyard Kipling, The City of Brass (1909)"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/cityofbrass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}