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Oxford University researchers say “religious violence is pretty rare in our history,” hunt for its causes

Nov 1, 2018 9:52 am By Robert Spencer

These Oxford University researchers, like most other academics today, dismiss out of hand the possibility that religious violence could stem from the actual teachings of a particular religion. Then, having rejected that idea, they cast about for another explanation for it. This study focused upon the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which was a political struggle expressed in terms of religious allegiance, and the 2002 Gujarat riots between Hindus and Muslims. They appear to have ignored the 33,000 jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11.

And they make the preposterous claim that “religious violence is not our default behaviour – in fact it is pretty rare in our history.” In my book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS, I document, largely from Islamic sources, the fact that everywhere Muslims have gone, all over the world, for fourteen centuries, there has followed violent attacks by some of those Muslims upon non-Muslims. Those violent Muslims were acting against the non-Muslims in order to try to impose Sharia upon them, institutionalizing their second-class status. In most cases, they succeeded. In the book I show that there was never a time of peaceful coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims, except when the Muslims enjoyed unchallenged hegemony.

The Oxford researchers either do not know this history, or do not want you to know. Either way, their study is a travesty.

“We might have worked out what makes religious people kill for their gods,” by Rob Waugh, Metro, October 31, 2018 (thanks to Paul):

Oxford University researchers created an AI system to simulate human society – to work out what causes outbreaks of religious violence.

The research used a ‘psychologically realistic’ system to investigate if human violence is ‘natural’ to our species – or if religion can stoke tensions between groups, leading to violence.

The researchers found that human beings generally are peaceful by nature – but when religious people’s ‘core beliefs’ are threatened, violence can ensue.

The researchers focused on intense periods of religious violence: the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which saw 3,500 people die and 47,000 injured in a three-decade clash between Republican and Loyalist paramilitary groups and the British Army.

They also investigated the 2002 Gujarat riots in India, which saw three days of violence between Hindus and Muslims, which ended with the deaths of 2,000 people….

The researchers found that in some situations, particularly when outsiders threaten religious people’s core beliefs, tensions can rise.

This only leads to violence in 20% of cases, the researchers say.

But the researchers point out that some religions have a tendency to encourage extreme displays of devotion – and this can lead to violence against other groups, or people who have broken away from the group.

Researcher Justin Lane said, ‘‘Religious violence is not our default behaviour – in fact it is pretty rare in our history.’ …

‘Ultimately, to use AI to study religion or culture, we have to look at modelling human psychology because our psychology is the foundation for religion and culture, so the root causes of things like religious violence rest in how our minds process the information that our world presents it.’

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Filed Under: academia, Featured, Useful idiots, willful ignorance Tagged With: Oxford University


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Comments

  1. Andy says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 9:57 am

    DC Professor Blames Jews & Trump for Pittsburgh Synagogue Massacre, Not a ‘Hate Crime’

    https://israelunwired.com/dc-professor-pittsburgh-synagogue-massacre-was-strictly-political-not-a-hate-crime/

    • Rob Harris says

      Nov 1, 2018 at 3:20 pm

      The partition of India and Pakistan was a love fest?

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 1, 2018 at 9:24 pm

      Disgusting. And the shooter actually condemned Trump for *not* hating Jews.

  2. mortimer says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 10:00 am

    Danish researcher Tina Magaard, Ph.D. concluded that Islam is the most warlike religion. After three years analyzing the original texts of ten different religions, Tina Magaard concluded that the Islamic texts stand out by encouraging terror and violence to a larger degree than other religions do. She stated that ‘Islamic texts encourage terror and fighting to a far larger degree than the original texts of other religions. The texts in Islam distinguish themselves from the texts of other religions by encouraging violence and aggression against people with other religious beliefs to a larger degree.’

    “What is striking is not in itself that one can find murderous passages in the Islamic texts, as such passages can also be found in other religions. But it is striking how much space these passages take up in the Islamic texts, and how much they focus on an us-and-them logic in which infidels and apostates are characterized as dirty, rotten, criminal, hypocritical and dangerous. It is also striking how much these texts demand that the reader fight the infidels, both with words and with the sword. In many passages, Muhammad plays a central role as one who encourages the use of violence, whether it comes to stonings, beheadings, acts of war or execution of critics and poets.”

    Tina Magaard finds it particularly objectionable that so many Islamic scholars in her opinion knowingly fail to disclose these facts, and use their positions of power to create specific standards for what you can say. Often, they also blame Danish racism rather than objectively stating that extremists actually find justifications for using violence and threats in Islam’s holy scriptures.…

    Asked whether after Krudttønden (the terror attack in Copenhagen, February 2015) and the attack on Charlie Hebdo it is desirable for future harmony and coexistence to stop drawing Muhammad, Tina Magaards answers unequivocally:

    “The only thing we get out of saying that we must not draw Muhammad is that there will be more religiously motivated restrictions on our freedoms. Rather, we must take the bull by the horns and question whether Muhammad did the right thing when he, for example, ordered his critics murdered. This is the discussion we need to have with European Muslims.”

    The most thought-provoking thing, according to Tina Magaard, is that it is so difficult to find an imam who dares or wants to criticize the aspects of Islam which contradict liberal freedoms…

    • Kepha says

      Nov 1, 2018 at 6:56 pm

      And I’m sure that someone told Tina Magaard, “You either retract your findings and declare that we are a religion of peace, or we’ chop off your head!”

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 1, 2018 at 9:36 pm

      Fine post.

  3. mortimer says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 10:02 am

    It’s the IDEOLOGY, stupid!

  4. revereridesagain says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 10:17 am

    Ye gods, excuse the expression. On a tiny but historically notorious scale, I live one town over from Salem, where in 1692 out of sheer religious/superstitious panic (with a bit of envy, greed, hysterical children, and winter boredom thrown in) the local Puritans hanged and otherwise “judiciously” murdered nearly a score of people for witchcraft. One old woman was dragged virtually past what is now my door for having “cursed” gullible neighbors into believing they could no longer perform normal biological functions.

    There has certainly been a lot of religiously-motivated violence in our history, but Islam, in the course of 1400 years, has managed to put the rest of the practitioners to shame. Robert’s “The History of Jihad” proves time and again that Islamic religious hysteria was the prime motivating factor for the bloodbath that is the history of that religion’s conquests. Anyone who denies that is just ignoring facts and dishonoring the victims.

  5. Hoi Polloi says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 11:30 am

    Well, I guess you can make any claim work if you begin by ignoring half the human race and thereby ignore the violence against women for which Islam is so well known. Continue from there by ignoring current wars and start your count past a certain September 11. Continue in that vein. It all works out so nicely for us all.

  6. Noel Anderson says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    What planet have these dickheads been living on…Yet more uneducated academics ……

  7. dan christenen says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    “The researchers found that human beings generally are peaceful by nature.”
    Why then was cannibalism so widespread in good old days?
    Why were ancient Greek city states constantly fighting each other?
    Why was the Roman Empire constantly at war?
    Why were Italian city states constantly attacking each other?
    Why did the Europeans fight the 30 years war 1618-1668, with millions dead?
    Why did the world fight 2 world wars within a span of 31 years?
    etc., etc.
    If all this marks human beings as peaceful by nature generally, one may safely conclude that the muslim Moghul rulers of India, who murdered 100 million hindus in a few hundred years, were not human beings.

  8. James Lincoln says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 1:23 pm

    Back in the day, wasn’t it prestigious to be selected as a Rhodes scholar?

    Today, universities are useless and a total waste of money unless you are a STEM major – and stay away from a far left indoctrination extracurricular activities, etc.

  9. GreekEmpress says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    Pretty rare in who’s history????
    Ask any Greek or Armenian what they think—-

    • gravenimage says

      Nov 1, 2018 at 9:42 pm

      +1

  10. sd.grumpymel@gmail.com says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    ‘‘Religious violence is not our default behaviour – in fact it is pretty rare in our history.’

    These guys must have been absent for 90 percent of history class.

    Even if you completely cut Islam out of the picture, you are still left with a ton of violence related to religious practice…

    The wars of the reformation and counter-reformation, the Tuetonic Crusades, the Inquisition…

    The religions of the Aztecs and the Inca’s involving human sacrifice….. and those of the Celts. The Norse glorification of death in battle as a gateway to Valhalla, Roman deification of the Ceasers and the gladitorial games, the Egyptian deification of the Pharohs and the sacrifice to them.

    The list is almost endless.

  11. nicholas tesdorf says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 5:24 pm

    As usual, the cause is hiding in plain sight for those with eyes to see.

  12. michael j. casmer says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 8:24 pm

    What about Catholics? For 300 years Catholic priests were hounded, put in prision, tortured and killed. Anyone caught harboring a priest would be inprisioned and executed. It wasn’t until the 1820’s that Catholics were allowed to vote in the UK. It wasn’t until 1904 when Victoria died that a Catholic could graduate from a university in the UK. They have short memories

  13. Lydia Church says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 9:11 pm

    True LIES.

  14. gravenimage says

    Nov 1, 2018 at 9:20 pm

    Oxford University researchers say “religious violence is pretty rare in our history,” hunt for its causes
    ………………

    D’oh!

  15. Felix Quigley says

    Nov 2, 2018 at 3:51 am

    Cimment on this paragraph

    “These Oxford University researchers, like most other academics today, dismiss out of hand the possibility that religious violence could stem from the actual teachings of a particular religion. Then, having rejected that idea, they cast about for another explanation for it. This study focused upon the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which was a political struggle expressed in terms of religious allegiance, and the 2002 Gujarat riots between Hindus and Muslims. They appear to have ignored the 33,000 jihad attacks worldwide since 9/11.”

    I would assert that this is the definition of subjective idealism in history…”Then, having rejected that idea, they cast about for another explanation for it”

    I would point out that the two examples they choose, in the North of Ireland there were no Muslims involved then as we all know. In the second Indian example Muslims, and it appears from some reports, the Congress Party, have portrayed Muslims and Islam as the victims.

    So in choosing those two situations the “researchers” immediately show their method.

    This method is one based on “subjective idealism”. Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, and Engels in “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man” put an end to this method forever. They were followed by Charles Darwin.

    Marx in his study of capitalism had to survey an enormous amount of data. Darwin also as we know did the same, and delayed and delayed publishing his theory of natural selection but he kept on in that time developing his data. Darwin based his theory on data, and Robert Spencer on his history of Islam used a similar method. The data is there to back up his conclusions.

    Especially Islam also does not bother with the data, rather they choose the data they want, that is the Koran, the Hadiths, and their “story” emerges out of that.

    What Donald Trump actually puts forward is of no interest to the “Trump Haters”. They ignore that and impose their version of “reality”. Very much the same erroneous method and academy is filled with it.

    In fact it is very obvious that these Oxford academics have done exactly the same in this report.

    I think I have shown it is a method totally opposed to science and based on subjective idealism.

  16. Rotten Eye says

    Nov 2, 2018 at 5:21 am

    Yes indeed, human history has been nothing but religious wars or at least partly of. The Oxford researchers obviously are trying to advance their liberal view resting on their flimsy credentials. They ignored the Hundred Year War, the French revolution, tribal conflicts in Africa founded on ethic and religious differences, Chinese oppression of Christians, the Danish Viking invasion into England all based to some extent on religions differences. Persian and Arab conflicts.

    • dan christenen says

      Nov 2, 2018 at 11:26 am

      “the Danish Viking invasion into England…”

      That invasion was based on raw lust and pure greed, just like the islamic invasion of England today. The Danish Vikings pillaged the monasteries, robbed the women and raped the cattle of England for at least a hundred years.
      However, the english revenged themselves bloodily by committing genocide on the thousands of Danish migrants in eastern England (Danelaw) – The Danes were practically exterminated.
      If history always repeats itself, the islamic migrant presence in England could be likewise abruptly terminated. Many of them are obviously attempting to copy the Vikings.

  17. Krishna says

    Nov 2, 2018 at 7:44 am

    What makes people kill for their God?
    Answer simple it’s becuase God commands to kill

  18. Terra Nova says

    Nov 2, 2018 at 3:49 pm

    How big is the difference between muslims and Christians. Do we go on the streets demonstrating big banners with the words “Massacre those who invade our countries, put their Sharia laws on us, rape us, kill us, behead us, etc? Like you carry the banners with those words. That is a big difference in civilisations.
    A difference of life and that is what makes us total incompatible and this all on our tax payers money.

  19. UNCLE VLADDI says

    Nov 2, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    Our emotions are not morals. They aren’t even reasons. They are effects, not causes, and as such, when invoked as mysteriously unknown and unknowable (yet are also held to strangely seen as “inevitable”) forces, they are only excuses to pretend to justify our criminal desires, intentions, and actions.

    We evolved our brains to see farther into the future in order to see and avoid pain-causing damage. Thus the potential images we “see” in order to avoid them, are called “fears” and the generalized memory of specific fears is called the emotion of “Fear” itself. General memories of pain relief are called Hope.

    And so it’s utter insanity to see the fear itself (a mere static memory of painfully damaging dynamics) as a pain-causing damage (and therefore also as the preposterous notion of damage-causing pain, aka “hurt feelings!”) and to then combat oppose wage war on or ignore it, much less to actually self-inflict the damage in order to cancel the secondary, static and harmless image of fear with actual pain (as those known as “masochists” do). People must understand that their emotions are merely re-presentations of the three most basic forms of space-time (solid past pain, fluid present greed, and nebulous future hope) in order to avoid this self-harm fad of the cult of victim-blaming hurt-feelings hypocrisy which threatens to destroy our personal rationality and collective civilizations just as little girls cut and burn them selves to avoid thinking about their fears, in order to refuse to learn to fix the mistakes and solve the problems which cause the damage which cause the pains they fear the most. Ignorance is not bliss, and avoiding problems is not in any way a rational response to them – hope alone aka faith, is not a valid plan in itself, much less a holy virtue to be signaled and encouraged in our own children.

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