God and Violence: An Argument Against Monotheism

According to Adherents.net, the main three monotheistic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity make up just over 54% of the world's population(Adherents). In a monotheistic dominated world, one could wonder how an argument could be made against it, but in terms of effects on society as a whole, monotheism serves to create more chaos and social conflict than perhaps the founders of each respective religion could have ever conceived. Although these three major religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam do give their followers ethical and moral guidelines, the practical application of the teachings often leads to hostility, violence, captivity and occasionally, genocide.

When a Jew, be it a child or an adult, is asked where the moral and ethical guidelines lie within the Torah, they will point directly to the second and third books: Exodus and Leviticus. It is in Exodus 20:2-17, after all, that the first mention of what is known today as the 'ten commandments' is presented(Oxford). The ten commandments were placed in educational materials for the majority of America's history, presenting the additional Christian reliance on these first laws from God. These commandments are commonly known by even those who do not claim monotheistic beliefs, containing such simple rules as 'thou shalt not kill' and 'thou shalt not steal'. It is obvious that these first ten simple rules given to Moses by God promote morality among the common people.

With the death of Jesus, according to the New Testament, an era of divine forgiveness was begun, in which the only way to have your transgressions forgiven by God and the people was to belief and repent to Jesus. This forgiveness is expected to extend through the church to communities. One such example of this display of divine transgression forgiveness can be seen in Luke 24:47, "...repentance and forgiveness of sings is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations." Furthermore, Jesus throughout the gospels preaches giving to the poor, as is seen in such examples as Luke 12:33 and Ephesians 4:28.

Finally, these acts of moral behavior are seen throughout the reinterpretation of the Bible through the prophet Mohammed in the religion of Islam. In the Koran, 2:267 states that believers should "give in alms from the wealth you have lawfully earned and from that which We have brought out of the earth for you (Koran)." The Koran supports the teachings of the bible in that what is given to the poor should be given freely. Yet, despite these obvious commandments set down by spiritual leaders of ancient times, the continuous track record of monotheistic related violence and oppression outweighs these minor benefits of supposed moral behavior.

Evidence of violence and oppression is present throughout the Hebrew Bible, the one set of books to which all three major monotheistic religions adhere. The most obvious examples of this occur in the stories of David throughout the first and second books of Samuel. In one such story about David, in 1 Sam 18, he completes a task for the father of a woman he wished to marry, in which he murders and removes the foreskins from one hundred Philistine men(Oxford). In 2 Sam 8:2, David defeats the Moabites, and makes them "lie down on the ground, measured them off with a cord; he measured two lengths of cord for those who were to be put to death, and one length for those who were to be spared(Oxford)." In fact, throughout the stories of David, a central theme emerges: that violence, and killing people in the name of God, is righteous and a value which should be extolled. Unfortunately, it is this theme that has kept solid throughout the history of these three monotheistic religions.

This violence is always aimed at those who are different from the particular religion. In some cases, it is inter-religious conflict which emerges as the cause of countless violent actions, but other cases, it is fear of the unknown which incites violence. For example, when the Christians invaded Muslim territory in 1099, they destroyed or altered any Muslim representations and shrines. In addition, conquering nations such as the Babylonians(predicted in Jeremiah 25:12), and later, the Romans, destroyed the famed Temple of Solomon.

In intra-religious relationships, such as those between different sects of Christianity, inter-religious relationships, such as those between Jews, Muslims, and Christians, and outer-religious relationships, such as those between a certain religion and a group or ethnicity of people, tensions can arise that are aggravated by religious beliefs.

Anti-Muslim tensions in Christianity have been around since the first Crusade and Siege of Jerusalem in the year 1099 CE. An attempt to reclaim the holy city from the 'infidel' Muslims, the death toll for this first crusade is estimated to be between sixty and one hundred thousand people(Siege). These people were all massacred inside the walls of Jerusalem as the final attack before the capture of the city. Even now, whether America admits it or not, there is obviously discrimination from a predominantly Christian society against a minority Muslim population within the states. This conflict between Muslims and the other two monotheistic religions have led to tensions that reemerged after the Crusades most predominately with the creation of the country of Israel. Since then, Arabic and predominately Muslim countries ruled by extremists have been trying to remove power from the Jews in Israel, such as in the six day war. In addition, Muslim extremist groups have attempted to attack and kill civilians in any and every country that has been an aid to the Jewish state of Israel.

Anti-Semitism in Christianity emerged first as a separatist response to the killing of Jesus by the Jews. With the belief held that God was punishing the Jews for killing his son, it was hardly a large leap for Christians to begin a long journey of discrimination and abuse of the Jewish population. The famed Martin Luther, for whom Martin Luther King Junior was named, was actually a well known Anti Semitist, writing such things as

"They are the boastful, arrogant rascals who to the present day can do no more than boast of their race and lineage, praise only themselves, and disdain and curse all the world in their synagogues, prayers, and doctrines(Luther 156)."

Anti-semitism perhaps accumulated in what we know as the Holocaust during World War Two. In this time, an estimated six million Jewish were murdered in the name of the Aryan Christian race.

In addition to the commonly cited Anti-Semitism, there are two cases in which oppression and violence were used against people classified as 'different' from Christians. The earliest of these two examples is the use of the Malleus Maleficarum to justify killing thousands, if not millions of people. This two hundred and fifty year war against 'witches' has death estimates most commonly between six hundred thousand and nine million people. The second case involved a commonly held belief through to the eighteen hundreds that enslavement of races was acceptable, and indeed, recommended by God. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, and Koran, slavery is mentioned, used in parables, and over all supported. As such, the most notable recent oppression of black people continued from before the beginning of America(slave trade began in 1440) until the mid eighteen hundreds. Oppression of people who were not necessarily less intelligent or otherwise inferior to the dominant race was preached throughout the world, simply because it was endorsed in the holy books. Included in this oppression is the Rwandan Genocide, in which two different races were aggravated by the 'superior' white and Christian race to begin a mass genocide effort that killed up to one million Rwandans in 1994(Tutsi).

Although Christianity has been the focus of this essay to this point, equally violent actions have been taken by both Muslims and Jews throughout the span of history. This conflict is most apparent right now, in the Middle East conflicts. Through interpretation of their respective holy books, Jews and Muslims both feel that they should have control of the city of David, Jerusalem. The combined death toll from the past six years - two thousand until two thousand and six - of Israeli and Palestinian citizens - is estimated to be 5,288 to date(B'Tselem).

To put it simply, if we place a number "1" on a page of paper for every time a person was murdered in the name of a monotheistic religion, we could quite possibly have one of the longest books in the world. Although the fundamental principles of each main monotheistic sect are similar - give to the poor, do not steal, do not murder - often in the practical implementation of the respective holy books, followers, both extreme and not so extreme, find themselves straying from their path. The straying and different view points have resulted in current conflicts throughout the world as well as millions, even billions of deaths throughout human history.

Works Cited

"Adherents." Adherents.net. 3 Dec 2006.

"B'Tselem - Statistics - Fatalities." B'Tselem. 3 Dec. 2006 .

Darwood, N J. The Koran. Penguin, 2003.

Luther, Martin. "Martin Luther - on the Jews and Their Lies." Humanitas International. 3 Dec. 2006 .

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New York: Oxford UP, 2001.

"Siege of Jerusalem." Wikipedia. 3 Dec. 2006 .

"Tutsi." Wikipedia. 3 Dec. 2006 .