Is religion a trick played on us by the Devil?

Captain_Amazing · July 12, 2003, 4:43pm

Well, in the 20th century, that’s quite possibly true, but that’s because it’s the first time you have a big organized anti-religious movement. Historically, though, most religious persecution came from the majority religion of an area against minority religions in that area. So, you have the mutual persecution of Catholics and Protestants in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th century, the suppression of the Old Believers in Russia in the 17th century, persecution of Christians in 18th century Tibet, etc.

Captain_Amazing · July 12, 2003, 4:46pm

The prophecy of Malachi isn’t Catholic bashing. It’s confusing, and you have to play with the prophecy to make it fit, but it’s not Catholic bashing

Captain_Amazing · July 12, 2003, 4:48pm

And technically, it probably should be spelled Malachy…so as not to confuse it with the biblical Malachi.

GodlessSkeptic · July 12, 2003, 6:56pm

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You are wrong and also missing the point.Not only has religious persecution come, more often than not from the religious but the people who are most often and openly victimized by this persecution are the non-religious(or those who were so charged as being non or anti-religious anyway).Nearly every war in the last 5,000 years, every inquisition,every witch hunt, every crusade and jihad, every violation of civil liberties has been justified through via some god’s or gods’ will or commandment.It does not matter much that these gods did not exist becuase people believed they did exist and when one believes that gods exist and certain people are invested with a clerical or messiahnic duty, and those clerics and messengers tell you that God commands we destroy so-and-so, what are you going to do?Defy God?!?

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I don’t care if you think they are “true scottsmen” or not.You are just rationalizing away the actions of the religious yourself.Anyone can employ this fallacy to support ANY position!

“Ther KKK are actually a wholesome, loving organization and those people acting on racism and murdering minorities are not true Klansmen!”

“NAMBLA is actually all about love for our children!Those guys having sex with young boys are misinterpreting what the organizationis all about!”
And so on…

What you end up with is that there are only 2 or 3 “true” religionists on the entire planet adn all of the rest are misinterpreting/misrepresenting religion in SOME way.

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Bald assertion.If religion never existed we would still have a variety of social programs to aid those in need(we in fact have a variety of such secular programs and organizations now).People who are humane and charitible by nature be so regardless of whether they are indoctrinated into a god-belief.
Just because religion exists adn some religious people do good does not mean that religion is necessary for “good”.

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Religion is not a reason to get off drugs or not commit suicide.Doing drugs is harmful to the user and those who care about him/her(and even people who just happen to be near the drug addict).If what you are arguing was true then atheists would have a greater probability of drug addiction, suicide and crime.However the exact opposite is true!Atheists are the LEAST likely to commit a violent crime amongst the various religious persuasions and are also way down on the list for drug abuse and suicides.

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I never said these things would disappear with religion’s demise.Just that we would lack one very powerful justification/motivation for such acts.It is one thing to try and coinvince your people to go to war with someone else because YOU don’t like those others and it is an entirely different thing to rally your people to fight the “enemy” by any means necessary because God has commanded it.

If religion were to somehow cease to exist altogether at this moment, how would the islamic militants justify strapping grenades to their own children?How would abortion clinic bombers rationalize their position that they “know” where life begins and that abortion is murder if they could not appeal to “personal revelation from God”?Would the catholic clergymen who molested children because their religious creed prevented them from making use of normal sexual outlets(i.e. wives) still have done so in the numbers we have seen?

The answer to these questions is a resounding “Not bloody likely!”.

Strawman.I was not arguing that without religion, utopia would be at hand.

Nobody · July 13, 2003, 8:29am

Well, GodlessSkeptic, I can see that you’re one of those people who pretty much focus on the negatives and downplay and ignore the positives.
Your bias is evident in questions like

First of all, it’s a relatively small number of priests who have done this. That doesn’t make it right, and I don’t excuse them, but it was only a small number of them.
Second, a vow of celibacy had nothing to do with the molestation’s. If wanting sex with a woman was the motivation, then they could have fornicated with women, hired hookers, etc. But those who molested were pedophiles, and allowing priests to marry wouldn’t have made any difference.
Anyway, I think I’ve said all I’m going to say on this subject.

GodlessSkeptic · July 13, 2003, 11:59pm

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First of all, this has been a MAJOR problem within the catholic church for at least 2-3 decades now by the church’s own admission.The problem was signifigant enough that the church was forced to establish national treatment centers to deal with clergymen who had commited acts of molestation and rape and this was done long before the recent rash of such acts were exposed.What do you consider a “small number” to be?20?200?2000???
There have been hundreds DIFFERENT PRIESTS involved in such acts and most of them were(as expected) involved in MANY acts of sexual misconduct and I am not even including the baseless, unsubstantiated accusations.Statistically speaking, of all the vocations clergy are one of the most likely to commit such acts.

I do not particularly dislike catholicism( not any more than I dislike most mainstream religions anyway) but please spare us the "It is all blown out of proportion"defense.A thousand stand-up comedians working on anti-catholic material for ten years could not blow the matter out of proportion.

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It is not the sole factor, no but to ignore it’s signifigance because it is easier than saying “maybe we were wrong on that one” is ridiculous.These rules of catholicism…these MAN MADE rules, not to be found anywhere in the Bible, which were established hundreds of years ago to increase the political power of the church, are all that seperate catholicism from protestant christianity and yet protestant christianity does not seem to have these problems to anywhere near the degree that catholicism has!
When one is forced to take vows to supress their natural human survival instincts and drives and then surrounds himself with things which can serve as an outlet for those urges/needs, this is a recipe for disaster.Try taking a vow of hunger and surrounding yourself with things which are edible(whether or not they should be eaten) adn see what happens.The sexual drive in humans is only slightly less powerful than our drive for sustanence and only because we do not perish or suffer obvious physical detriment when we go without sex.

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Who said it was the motivation?You make it sound as though the pedophilic priests made concious decisions that “If I cannot have a woman I will molest a child!”.That’s not how it works and those who are actual pedophiles in the sense that they are psychologically drawn toward children as objects of sexual desire, could not have benefited from a relaxing of these vows and rules anyway but the higher ups in the catholic heirarchy should not have engaged in covering up these affairs for the last twenty something PLUS years either!

Not all of them.Not everyone who has molested someone younger than the legal age of consent is a pedophile in the strict sense.Many of the priest in hot water did indeed engage or assault prostitues and teenage girls and even nuns!A pedophile is someone who prefers, usually to the exclusion of all others, children.Many molestations occur simply as acts of oppurtunity.In such cases, if the priest were surrounded by unconcious or mentally handicapped adult women he would have faired no better.It just so happens these priest were in a position of trust and responsibility that left them alone with children more often than not and children in general make poor witnesses in such cases.