Tuesday, November 18, 2008
All Over Religion
I don't think I will ever truly understand why people feel the need to kill others over their religion. I know this subject has been talked about to death but the reading this week on St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre just brought me right back to it. Several things seemed to have gotten this massacre started. First, the Catholics weren't really happy with the peace treaty set up to end the "Third War of Religion". Second, Henry III of Navarre (protestant) and Marguerite of Valois (catholic) were gonna get married. Which the Pope and most Catholics did not agree with. Paris, a dominatly catholic city was filled protestants around the time that Henry and Marguerite were to get married. Lastly, the failed assassination of the Huguenot Admiral de Coligny upset the catholics even more. This all occured in a time period of about 2 years. Apparently the Catholics were feeling threatened by all this protestanism and went on a killing spree. I read that over 2,000 people were killed in Paris and over 3,000 more in the surrounding French provinces. That's over 5,000 people dead because someone else didn't believe the same thing. The sad thing is that it still happens in our world today and will continue to happen. (Here is the link for my extra information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre)
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2 comments:
I have to agree with you Anita, I will never understand killing in the name of religion. I see the point that killing in the name of anything is ridiculous and there is usually economic gain. I also believe that this civil war was a battle for power, not just economic gain. These people were fighting over who had the right to control the views of the masses. In this instance it was the religous views. It is sad to see the amount of those who have died due to war, religous or economical. It just seems to me that killing in the name of god contradicts everything he is about?
I share your confusion. Religion has sparked many, many wars, protests, riots, problems. I'm completely for people supplementing their lives with a divine set of rules, but when those rules turn into violence, it seems to defeat the ultimate purpose. I think it's important to understand that the corruption is man-made. When asking my very religious mother about how religious wars can be justified, she simply responded with the quip, people are corrupt, god is not.
i certainly agree with her sentiments, that people are corrupt, and maybe that is what we should remember when thinking about all the religious wars.
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