| json_metadata | "{"app":"Musing","appTags":["History"],"appCategory":"History","appTitle":"The interpretation of which of these documents caused the most controversy and bloodshed in human history - the Bible, the Qur'an, or the 2nd Amendment of the U.S constitution?","appBody":"<p>I like the idea of the interpretation of these documents as part of the question as opposed to what the documents actually might say. I think in many ways, how they are interpreted does cause the controversy and/or bloodshed, and realizing that is helpful to perhaps changing all that.</p>\n<p>MOST CONTROVERSY</p>\n<p>I can see some people jumping in many different ways on this one, including the second amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but the problem with the second amendment is, it's only been around for less than 230 years, and it seems like the bulk of the controversy has come since the latter part of the 20th century, with the cause of it in general—mass shootings, coming predominantly in the last 40 years.</p>\n<p>Guns have been around for much longer, dating back in some form to the mid-1300s, so guns have been in use and actually being used in self-defense, wars, and killing others in cold blood for much longer than the second amendment has been around and interpreted to mean that a U.S. citizen has the right to bear arms without infringement.</p>\n<p>So, just based on the time factor and how it has been looked upon by the majority until the last four decades, I need to rule it out as being the most controversial in human history. Considering that it is also more of an American controversy than it is a worldwide controversy, would also seem to limit it.</p>\n<p>BIBLE OR QUR'AN?</p>\n<p>Again, time is a factor here. The Qur'an has been around since the early part of the 7th century, but it's widespread use took a while to take hold, and a lot of it was localized to what has become known as the Middle East before spreading out into Northern Africa and other nations. And while there are more than 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, the bulk of those still live within the countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa.</p>\n<p>So, any controversies caused by the interpretation of the Qur'an, for a long period of time, has been localized, and predominantly within the Muslim communities themselves, as various reforms have taken place. While there could be considered to be many branches, the vast majority of Muslims are either Sunni or Shi'ite.</p>\n<p>While Western Civilization has been aware of Islam, the Qu'ran and Muslims for centuries, the most controversy (outside of the 180 years or so of crusades) has come within the last 60 years as a more militant interpretation of Islam has grown outside the boundaries of Muslim nations.</p>\n<p>THE BIBLE</p>\n<p>Because of this, I would have to go with the Bible as the most controversial document in human history based on its interpretation, simply because of its longevity and wider spread use. It has been around the longest in some form, beginning with the first five books of the Old Testament, and the rest being added as time went on. And while the book itself wasn't readily available among believers for many centuries, its influence was still felt through the lives of the adherents themselves in the rituals, festivals and other holy practices they were asked to perform.</p>\n<p>Again, for much of the Bible's existence, the effect of it was localized, but that has exploded in times since, with over 5 billion copies of some version of the Bible in print. There are many versions of it in English alone, which in and of itself has caused controversy. That's before we get to how many different churches there are that are based or partially based on the Bible. There are hundreds of different Christian churches, and several different versions of Judaism.</p>\n<p>I would say that controversy among the distinct believers of the Bible abounds. To what degree, I suppose, could be debated, but given that even among just the Baptists there are over 25 different groups should say something.</p>\n<p>MOST BLOODSHED</p>\n<p>Given that I've walked through how I arrived at which document has caused the most controversy, I won't revisit what I've mentioned above, since a good portion of the controversy can be linked to bloodshed.</p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this is going to be harder to rationally determine since there doesn't appear to be a reliable death toll for anything specifically related to interpretations of the above documents. In fact, there could be a number of factors involved, including politics and power, or ecclesiastical leaders who felt they were called to do this or that, which had more to do with them then it might have to do with how they interpreted their religious texts.</p>\n<p>The fact remains, however, that there have been way too many deaths in the name of religion for both Christians, Jews, as well as Muslims. Christianity and Islam in particular are responsible for perhaps multi-millions of deaths, many for differences within their own religions, and then against one another.</p>\n<p>I will go ahead and rule out the second amendment as being the document (or part of a document, rather) of which the interpretation thereof has caused the most bloodshed.</p>\n<p>I will also say that the number of deaths in the name of the Bible (Christianity, Jews, associated religions) has dwindled over the last couple of centuries compared to the number that could be associated with the Qu'ran (Islam and its branches). </p>","appDepth":2,"appParentPermlink":"pky98czn5","appParentAuthor":"rasamuel","musingAppId":"aU2p3C3a8N","musingAppVersion":"1.1","musingPostType":"answer"}" |
|---|
hiveblocks