Israel is actively destabilizing the region. They are even caught helping funding HAMAS.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excommunication_in_the_Catholi...

And this, my friends, is one of the many reasons why I spend too much of my time tracking the bat shit crazy stuff these religious nut cases go on about -- because they're waging a holy war today against non-believers.

It must be emphasized: these people would be fine with exterminating non-believers. I would like to be wrong about this, but I've seen enough to know that a sizeable amount would relish the chance.

China has never been Catholic/Christian/Evangelic and yet it survived tons of 'apocalypses', and not just Mao. When the commies didn't even exist in China they already suffered a badass famine in the 19th century and yet they survived until today and being a powerhouse.

They already had a huge Philosophical system/beliefs since Confucious on par of the Greeks and they already were aware of mathematical terms for Pi and completing the square, if not the basics of integration (to be fair, the Greeks too with Archimedes defining a proto-Calculus with exhaustion).

So, if any, the Middle East religions set the whole scientific minddet back, not further. Yes, they improved the Humanism a little because of that, but the School of Salamanca in Renacentist Spain (and Alphonse X with my beloved the Book of Games) were basically bringing the Greek mindset back with Christian excuses.

I mean, the whole Hispanic culture can be humanist enough because of itself being already social/helpful without bringing myths to the populace.

If you have been in Spain, you'll understand. Is not the myths, it's about to actually practice what the religions actually meant (contrary to the properity Gospel) without making a showing off as Americans do going to the Church on daily basis. I've seen more 'Christians' in Spain by how to they behave with their peers than in any megachurch seen in these Youtube videos with fancy shows and whatnot looking both ridiculous and even slightly blasphemous if you actually believed on that Jesus thought to the rest.

Back to History. Onnce the Brits got the Calculus bases right and kickstared the industrial revolution, that among Francis Bacon and Lavousier was a Game Over for your Abrahamic religions where the Bible wasn't a valid source for anything at all. Stack Paleonthology on top and the legacy of Abraham just crumbles into dust.

So, as an Agnostic, the best you can do is to follow the golden rule. Help to be helped. That's it. The rest it's artsy folklore.

If there's a God it would be happier to see that people just tried to put their hate/fears aside to create a less stressing and dangerous world instead of focusing on the dogma and Theology.

Koran gets a bad rap, but some parts of the bible are just horrific.

Had it been a modern day manuscript it would have been seen as a post-hoc rationalization of genocidal domination of one tribe over others.

Of course then come the game of 'dont take it literally and its all a metaphor something something'

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%202...

"When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you.

If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you."

The choice that is offered is between slavery and genocide. This is going to be downvoted (already has) but I am just quoting the Bible.

> "Jesus is the King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war" [Leo] said on Palm Sunday at the start of Holy Week.

Maybe it's out of context or a misquote but Catholics believe war can be justified (for example like the Crusades) and have developed a "just war theory" that details criteria on when war can be justified. Such wars follow from the right to individual self-defense, applied to the collective level of a government / State.

The other quote seems to say as much:

> McElroy, the author of a doctoral thesis on moral norms in US foreign policy, does not believe the war in Iran complies with Catholic teaching on a “just war,” which sets out criteria for a morally justified conflict.

It may be the case that certain wars or military conflicts do not fit just war criteria. We would expect a Catholic pope to say that then instead of "Leo's" confusing quote above.

(To be sure, Jesus does encourage peacemaking; war is thought to be a last resort for resolving conflict after peaceful means have been exhausted)