When Stalin was conducting his purges, setting quotas for executions in a given region the reasons given is his own orders to Beria stated that too many communists had “lost faith” in the party. Indeed Beria himself referred to Stalin as a fanatic a “quasi-Islamic” Marxist, it sure sounds like a religion to me.
I haven’t overlooked any fallacies, and I don’t think “atheism is best.” I don’t think religion is evil or that it causes problems. I think it’s just a vehicle for human emotions, expressions and actions of all sorts, running the whole range from transcendence to utter darkness. It doesn’t cause those things, it’s just an outlet (or sometimes a political tool) for them. People are sinners, saints and assholes all by themselves. However they act religiously just reflects whatever they are to begin with.
I don’t expect this. I don’t even expect hardcore, right wing fundies to defend them. The truth is that I don’t regard the Phelps clan as being honestly religious or Christian in the first place. That’s just a front for them.
Communism IS a religion. Religion doesn’t ahve to be theistic. Communists weren’t killing anybody in the name of atheism, but in the service of their own brand of magical thinking.
Atheism, per se, is not an ideology or belief system and atheists have no shared worldview or agenda. The only thing they share is an absence of belief in gods.
Of course - but I’m not arguing equivalency - just that it’s rather disingenuous to give one side of the argument a complete pass, even as they shovel off their own (pardon the expression) “sins” onto their opponents.
Re: “lost faith” == religion…right…and when an atheist stubs his toe and says “goddammit” he’s avowing that he has, in fact, returned to the fold. Or, you know, faith may just be a word that’s found its way into common use as a synonym for trust.
Oh, and the Buddhist golden rule is not quite the same as the Christian one. To paraphrase, the first is “don’t be a dick” while the second is “do some good.”
(I see Dio has responded while typing this.)
Now, see - that comes off as a LOT more reasonable. And I agree with about 95% of it straight off. I do still disagree that Communism is a religion, though I’ll agree that it has, in fact, filled a similar slot in some peoples minds…but very nearly anything can - I’ve seen sports fans pull off a level of devotion that would put snake-handlers to shame. Even science fills it for some people - Einstein & Sagan both displayed a level of reverence for physics, for example.
What might be the main problem that religion has had over history is that a person’s drive and devotion are what tends to get them promoted…and nutters certainly have a high tendency to be driven and devoted, even if saner folks ought to, but don’t quite see where it will lead. Science has an advantage there - as *reproducibility *is the big factor for the hard sciences, at least.
So, basically - arseholes are arseholes, regardless of what they call themselves.
I’m not sure anyone is targeting one side of the argument, since the opposite side of the argument is theism, not Christianity (or ‘religion X’).
If someone said that theism led to atrocities and all that, then that cannot be correct. My point isn’t that Christianity (or X religion, but I’ll speak to Christianity in particular) per say is responsible and has never done anything good. I think some good has come from it. That said, my point is that there are people who have committed atrocities in the name of Christianity (or X religion), in that they went to their holy books, found specific passages, and justified their atrocities on their religion. Were they in the right? Was their interpretation valid? I’m not one to say and that’s not my point.
My point is that you can’t say the same about atheism (or theism) since there is nothing to point to. No holy texts. No absolute decrees on morality.
Here is where religion is different. Say you had two people tottering at the brink of assholedom, one an atheist and one a believer. Say, for instance, that they are genetically homophobic, but have been brought up not to beat up anyone. They both would like to do it, but kind of know it is wrong.
Now, atheism has no oughts - it is purely the lack of god belief. (In this case if you insist it only means disbelief it doesn’t matter.) Atheists leaders make no special claim to correctness - everything rests on the logic of their argument. Given this, the atheist asshole is likely to obey the conventions of society and be good.
Now say the believing asshole runs into a religious leader. This guy shows the Bible verses condemning homosexuality and furthermore says that God has spoken to him, and that God hates gays. Our believer may protest that he has been taught not to hurt anyone, in which case the leader asks him if he is putting his morals above those of god. How is he to respond?
I’m not ruling out the case that another religious leader uses the same argument to say that God loves everyone and no one should be hurt. The problem is not that religion necessarily tells us to do evil, but that if we buy the message of religion (that God’s will overrides our will and our morals) you have no reason to resist religiously motivated evil. If the Bible had a 100% positive message this might not be a problem, but we have to live with the Bible we got.
I’d say that’s probably true. We can’t say with any reasonable degree of certainty one way or the other. If we had a non religious parrelel universe we could observe that might help. Maybe we can watch that South PArk epsode about atheism in the future and drraw some conclusion from that.
One thing to keep in mind is that even though mankind has been religious or spirtual by a huge margin throughout most of history we as a race has have still managed to progress.
I tend to think that unless demons of greed , racism, the need for power over others, and all the rest would manifest themselves in some way. We are what we are as a race of human’s and religion has played it’s role in the good and bad of us.
People have all kinds of reason’s fir justifying their actions. religious belief is one. Isn’t it just as easy to assume in some cases religion keeps people from doing bad things becasue they believe what the preacher is saying or whatever.
Isn’t it just as easy to assume an atheist who has thrown off the shackles of religion can now committ any act they think they can get away with. It’s only illegal if you get caught.
And the atheist could have found a political leader who justified his bigotry though philosophy, psychology, or sociology. There wasn’t really a religious-based argument for the forced lobotomies or sterilizations of early 20th century eugenics.
Yes, religion is a framework that can be abused - but that’s not the fault of religion - any such framework can do the same. Some religions do place an emphasis on the don’t-question-your-betters BS, but that is neither unique to, nor representative of religion.
That is why I started these two people at the same place.
But actually all justification, even religious justification, is atheistic - at least in our society. While you may do something either good or bad because some Bible verse told you to, you choose that Bible verse versus another one that says something totally opposite. Why you do this has nothing to do with God and everything to do with your culture and genetic disposition.
There are sociopaths of all persuasions, but a non-sociopath atheist will do only what he feels is morally justifiable. A non-sociopath theist convinced that God wants something might abandon ethics - like taking a child from his parents in order to be raised in the “right” religion.
If we were supposed to actually use the Bible for justification in a religious way, we would expect it to be both self-consistent and making only true statements about the real world. Since it isn’t, and since no one can give us a rigorous way to decide which Bible passages to accept and which to reject, it all becomes just a matter of opinion. The danger is that “I choose to accept this passage for basically random reasons” quickly becomes “God wants me to do what is in this passage - it is right in the Bible and you can’t argue with God.”
I agree with this.
I think it’s important to note that the same mechanism, the same emotional states that bring about the bad things we see in religion exist in other organizations and groupings as well. Tribalism, nationalsm etc.
We are talking ethical actors here, not sheep. Notice the minister is not telling the guy to do it because he said to, but because God said to.
Nothing can be the fault of religion, since religion is not a moral entity. It is however inherent in religion that God is the final moral arbiter. Are you saying that each of us sets ourselves up as the final interpreter of God’s word? If so, you need to tell us some guidelines to this interpretation, otherwise we basically make up an interpretation in a way identical to us making up morals in the first place.
I agree with this. Anytime we elevate something outside ourselves to a position of moral preeminence, we can get into trouble.
Agreed. But that doesn’t make tribalism or nationalism (or communism) a religion, any more than a tendency to be white & fluffy makes cotton, sheep & clouds the same.
No - he’s telling the guy to do it because HE says God said to. Unless of course, he can manage to produce 40-foot high letters of flame or something. 
Regardless of what they believe God’s will (or the lack thereof) is, ultimately, each person is responsible for their own actions. Assuming there is not a God, then responsibility for your actions are solely your own. However, assuming there is a God, then the responsibility for your actions would STILL lie solely on you, whether or not He approved…there’s just further consequences.
The unfortunate all-too-human tendency to attempt to pass that off to someone else, or to take that responsibility from another is found across ALL human interactions, not simply religion. The ability and responsibility to analyze, define, review & redefine one’s beliefs is probably a decent way to define the difference between human & animal sentience.
I’d say anyone who uses relgion to take away someone’s children is a sociopath.
I would grant that religion is commonly used to encourage and fuel some sociopathic behaviour. Religion can be used to steer people toward false beliefs and bad behaviour as part of a group, but it can and is also used to encourage positive behaviour.
Atheism can be one component of a personal belief system that can also go either way depending on the individual. Isn’t just about anything morally justifiable to anyone if that’s their inclination?
True, but the same Bible also creates the conversation when verses conflict. You’re basically saying religion and a belief in a holy book is a more dangerous vehicle for justification right? Maybe.
I might accept that plenty of religion does not promote or encourage independent thinking and evaluation although some does. Introspection is often encouraged within the religious framework. The same might be said for any group that tennds to be too dogmatic. Look at the fight in our political system between moderates with left or right tendencies vs those who consider them sleves truly conservative or truly progressive. Any group that is intolerant of opposing concepts or even variations will have a similar problem.
I know. I didn’t say or intend to imply that. I’m speaking only the internal mechanism that we as human’s share in common. A combination of our intellect and emotions influenced by culture and upbringing. It’s important because too often we tend to blame something a lot more superficial for behaviour or attitudes, or worse, we fail to recognize when we exhibit similar traits.
extreme example; I hate bigots. I think they all ought to be shot.
(I was agreeing with you, as you phrased it better than I had, but expanding on my point-of-dissent with Dio, sorry if that was unclear.)
I had this on a t-shirt in college…along with a “Why vote for the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulu!” and a few other read-twice-then-think slogans.
This particular sociopath is up for sainthood.
I definitely agree about atheism, and I suspect most atheists would also. Atheism doesn’t give us any moral guidance, so anything an atheist does is a function of his personal belief system. Whether atheism itself has anything to do with it depends on whether you think the absence of belief can be part of a belief system. And yes, anything is morally justifiable to anyone - but it is somewhat easier if you can throw away ethical arguments and say the justification is that God wants it.
The ethical conversation can happen without the benefit of the Bible. The difference between political discussions and religious discussions is that in traditional political discussions neither player claims access to the absolute answer. In good times. When political players start claiming absolute truth - Marx said it and I believe it or some of the nonsense on the right today, our system breaks down. Is it a coincidence that political absolutism and religious absolutism often go hand in hand. I’m including political religious absolutism like Communism.
While I’m not arguing that “religion is teh EVEEEEELLLL!!!” I wouldn’t necessarily use pre-Columbian society as a good example. Artichecture, yes. But some of them were just as brutal – the Aztecs may have been extremely advanced, but their religion was way fucked up.
Not saying they were universal fonts of goodness and light (far from it…human adult and child sacrifice, wars of extermination, self inflicted mutilation, etc. And these were some of their more charming qualities). But there is no doubt that religion bound those societies and civilizations together, or that they were responsible for much of the grand monumental architecture and art that has preserved those remnants of cultures and civilizations to this day…
(plus, it gave us the whole frenzy about the 2012 apocalypse, so that’s got to count for SOMETHING…)
-XT