Should we forgive (and forget) religions' past atrocities?

[GreasyJack]

I think that counterargument #2 would generally be compelling. Most religions have flexible dogma that changes with the whims of society, and even in those that don’t the actual practice of that religion does. Unlike Thudlow Boink, I really think the comparison to biological evolution can be useful-- if a religion really is firm in dogma and practice, it can’t respond to changes in the “environment” of society and it dies out as it ceases to appeal to people in that society. This is part of why religion is so much stronger in the US than in most European countries-- those countries had established state religions that had static dogma enforced by the state, whereas religions compete on a ruthless survival-of-the-fittest playing field in the US. We can barely go 50 years without a Great Awakening! So, to get to the OP, I think we should generally blame those atrocities on the society at the time, since the religions that provided the excuse for them were mere reflections of that society and bear little resemblance to how those religions are practiced today. (I think you could make an argument for religion in general helping those atrocities by providing the excuse, but it’s harder to say that something unique to the core tenents caused them).

The only trouble is that most religions deny the above. So while I don’t think we can really hold them accountable for those atrocities, if they’re going to claim that they have an unchangeable and infallible dogma dating back to or past those atrocities, I think we have every right to do some serious eye-rolling in their direction.

@Thudlow_Boink

But more importantly, it assumes that evolving—in the sense of progressing or becoming more advanced or more “highly evolved” (whatever that might mean) is what institutions typically do.

Also, this isn’t really how biological evolution works either. The idea of “more evolved” and “less evolved” organisims fell by the wayside a long time ago-- you could maybe make a distinction between more complex vs. simpler species, but selection pressures can cause them to “evolve” in either direction. There is no end goal towards which organisms (or religions) are evolving.

[Cyningablod]

@Der_Trihs

Yes, it is fair because they claim to be intrinsically true and moral. A government can claim that it isn’t composed of the same people with the same opinions as is was 50 or a hundred years ago, and that can work; religions however claim to be tapped into something other than erring humans. If they want to be judged like any other group of humans, as something that needs to learn from their mistakes, then they also lose their claim to somehow having a special source of enlightenment.

In other words, it is fair to criticize them for the evils of the past, because the existence of those evils demonstrates that their claim to having some special source of morality and enlightenment is false.

GOOD POINT! I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I came close, but that nails it.

[Calculon]

@Cyningablod

GOOD POINT! I hadn’t really thought of it like that. I came close, but that nails it.

The logic of this statement however only works in two cases

1. The religion actually claims that people will live up to an objective standard. Many religions, such as Christianity, does not claim that true followers will live up to a particular objective standard. It does claim that believers will be better versions of themselves than they would be if they had no faith. It does not claim that individual believers will be better than individual non-believers. In these cases the argument against the religion fails

2. It only works against the individual religion in question. So for instance, if Hindus committed some atrocity that says nothing about the truth of Judaism. This is really one of the main problems in talking about “religion”. “Religion” covers a range of independent beliefs, many of them having virtually nothing in common. You can’t really talk of them as one monolithic block, you have to treat each view separately.

Calculon.

[Cyningablod]

@ITR_champion

We should also remember, for instance, that Chairman Mao killed far more people on an average day of his 27-year dictatorship than the Spanish Inquisition killed in its entire existence.

Cite?

But let’s assume for a moment that that’s an accurate statement (which I highly doubt).

The Spanish Inquisition was just one brief example of the atrocities wrought by religions around the globe, on every continent and in every nation, over at least the past three thousand years. You really think that Communist (“atheist”) atrocities from only the 20th century come anywhere CLOSE to matching the volume of tears shed, flesh flayed, and blood spilt by religions, over the millennia? :eek: As Sean O’Casey once said, “Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands.” I’m pretty sure any history book is a cite for that!

But here’s an even more fatal flaw in the But-Mao-and-Stalin-were-ATHEISTS! argument: Neither Mao nor Stalin generally killed because of their atheism; they slaughtered people simple because they were bloodthirsty political dictators. Throughout all of history, religious violence has been self-generating; it draws its evil from its own ideology. Not so with “atheist violence”. The atheism is largely incidental, because the butchery derives from simple political totalitarianism. So even if we could accept that nominally atheistic regimes have slain close to as many total victims as religion, the argument STILL wouldn’t come close to establishing what you want it to (a sort of equivalence-of-ethic between religious and atheistic institutional violence).

(Out of curiosity, I wonder whether the three books that inflamed you so much mentioned that?)

No, because a) it’s probably simply false, and b) it’s utterly irrelevant (see above).

So if you’re now strongly against religion, do you have to stop this sort of thing because of the Spanish Inquisition?

Slippery slope and straw man, all in one. OF COURSE we don’t “stop” people from helping each other! :rolleyes: No anti-theist that I know, of even the fiercest stripe, wishes to eradicate works of charity performed from religious mandate or inspiration. I doubt that even Der Trihs would want to do that. Where did you get this silly idea? The anti-theist position is this: We don’t NEED religion to help each other out, and all things considered, we’re better off without it, because of how easily it is wielded for evil.

[Cyningablod]

@Calculon

Many religions, such as Christianity, does not claim that true followers will live up to a particular objective standard. It does claim that believers will be better versions of themselves than they would be if they had no faith. It does not claim that individual believers will be better than individual non-believers.

Not true. The Bible is replete with passages assuring the faithful that they will be literally Godly (emphases mine):

2Pe 1:4 - “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Note that this says that believers will actually share “natures” with God through Jesus! :eek:

Phl 2:15 - " […] so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…"

Rom 8:9 -10 - “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

Rom 6:4 - “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

Mat 17:20 - "He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ " Including sinless living!

There are many dozens more like that, especially in the Gospels and Pauline Epistles (I’m too lazy to look them all up). The Bible promises that believers can be LITERALLY sinless though Christ. Bullshit, I say.

2. It only works against the individual religion in question. So for instance, if Hindus committed some atrocity that says nothing about the truth of Judaism. This is really one of the main problems in talking about “religion”. “Religion” covers a range of independent beliefs, many of them having virtually nothing in common. You can’t really talk of them as one monolithic block, you have to treat each view separately.

Again, not true. Adherents of ALL religions older than a few decades–ALL! including Buddhism and the “peaceable” Eastern faiths–have indulged in atrocities for the sake of their belief system. I can’t stress that last phrase heavily enough, because that’s the key distinction here: Religion, by its very nature (“divine” mandate, “evangelical” desire to convert others, and a deep intolerance of “sins”), tends to lead to ideologically-driven violence. So it is entirely justified to treat the phenomenon as a Gestalt.

[Calculon]

@Cyningablod

Not true. The Bible is replete with passages assuring the faithful that they will be literally Godly (emphases mine):

2Pe 1:4 - “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Note that this says that believers will actually share “natures” with God through Jesus! :eek:

Phl 2:15 - " […] so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…"

Rom 8:9 -10 - “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”

Rom 6:4 - “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

Mat 17:20 - "He replied, ‘Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.’ " Including sinless living!

There are many dozens more like that, especially in the Gospels and Pauline Epistles (I’m too lazy to look them all up). The Bible promises that believers can be LITERALLY sinless though Christ. Bullshit, I say.

Again, not true. Adherents of ALL religions older than a few decades–ALL! including Buddhism and the “peaceable” Eastern faiths–have indulged in atrocities for the sake of their belief system. I can’t stress that last phrase heavily enough, because that’s the key distinction here: Religion, by its very nature (“divine” mandate, “evangelical” desire to convert others, and a deep intolerance of “sins”), tends to lead to ideologically-driven violence. So it is entirely justified to treat the phenomenon as a Gestalt.

The theological belief that you are referring to is called “sinless perfectionism”, the idea that when someone becomes a Christian they necessarily become perfect. This view has been consciously rejected by nearly every mainstream Christian church.

The common Christian view of salvation is that as we live as a Christian the Holy Spirit transforms the believer, but that process is only completed at the resurrection at the end of time. Until that time Christians can and do sin, and we should not expect that Christians should act perfectly.

So for instance if you look at Romans 7:14-24, Paul says

14 We know that the law is holy. But I am not. I have been sold to be a slave of sin. 15 I don’t understand what I do. I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do what I hate to do. 16 I do what I don’t want to do. So I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, I am no longer the one who does these things. It is sin living in me that does them.

18 I know there is nothing good in my sinful nature. I want to do what is good, but I can’t. 19 I don’t do the good things I want to do. I keep on doing the evil things I don’t want to do. 20 I do what I don’t want to do. But I am not really the one who is doing it. It is sin living in me.

21 Here is the law I find working in me. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 Deep inside me I find joy in God’s law. 23 But I see another law working in the parts of my body. It fights against the law of my mind. It makes me a prisoner of the law of sin. That law controls the parts of my body.

24 What a terrible failure I am! Who will save me from this sin that brings death to my body? 25 I give thanks to God. He will do it through Jesus Christ our Lord.

So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law. But in my sinful nature I am a slave to the law of sin.

What he is saying is that Christians still have a sinful nature living in them causing them to do bad things. This continues until the resurrection when the sinful nature is finally killed completely and those saved by God will get their final resurrection bodies.

But in any case, even if you believe in “sinless perfectionism” then it is impossible for a faithful person to do evil things. Therefore no sinless perfectionist person would admit that Christians actually do bad things. If they do bad things it is evidence that they are not really Christians, not that Christianity is false in any way.

Calculon.

[Calculon]

@Cyningablod

Again, not true. Adherents of ALL religions older than a few decades–ALL! including Buddhism and the “peaceable” Eastern faiths–have indulged in atrocities for the sake of their belief system. I can’t stress that last phrase heavily enough, because that’s the key distinction here: Religion, by its very nature (“divine” mandate, “evangelical” desire to convert others, and a deep intolerance of “sins”), tends to lead to ideologically-driven violence. So it is entirely justified to treat the phenomenon as a Gestalt.

One could say the same thing about non-religious beliefs as well. If you take seriously the view that Sam Harris and others suggests that religious people are actually dangerous, and they refuse to give up their religious beliefs, then that leads to violence as well. So for instance in revolutionary France that logic was employed to slaughter Catholics who refused to give up their faith. It also ignores the fact that different religions have different attitudes to violence, and some religions actually do preach non-violence, or at least violence in only exceptional circumstances (such as self defense, ect).

I really think that part of your problem in thinking about this question is the horribly biased sources that you are using. I have read the “God Delusion” and found it to be horribly biased historically and woefully ignorant philosophically and theologically. Neither Jon Krackauer or Christopher Hitchens are serious historians either. If you want to understand the truth of the history of religion, rather then just atheist fundamentalist revisionist histories, then I suggest you widen your reading to include more serious, scholarly and non-partisan sources.

Calculon.

[Calculon]

@Cyningablod

Cite?

But here’s an even more fatal flaw in the But-Mao-and-Stalin-were-ATHEISTS! argument: Neither Mao nor Stalin generally killed because of their atheism; they slaughtered people simple because they were bloodthirsty political dictators. Throughout all of history, religious violence has been self-generating; it draws its evil from its own ideology. Not so with “atheist violence”. The atheism is largely incidental, because the butchery derives from simple political totalitarianism. So even if we could accept that nominally atheistic regimes have slain close to as many total victims as religion, the argument STILL wouldn’t come close to establishing what you want it to (a sort of equivalence-of-ethic between religious and atheistic institutional violence).

Just to add one more thing I think this is by far a too simplistic view of what actually went on in Russia. One thing that you have to remember is that Stalin did not kill all those people personally, he motivated others to do it for him. And the prevailing ideology of Communism stated that religion (in this particular case Russian Orthodox Christianity) was an enemy of the state and needed to be eradicated. So if one actually bothers to look into the history of Russia, into the persecution of Christians or into the activities of the Society of the Godless you will find accounts of people killing and persecuting Christians precisely because of their Communist / atheist ideology. The interpretation of history that communist atheism was only incidental to what went on is really an apologist distortion of history advanced by the neo-atheist fundamentalists and not proper history.

Calculon.

[Magiver]

@Der_Trihs

Not true, the more secular a society is, the better off it is.

That’s not a cite for anything and it completely ignores the bigger picture. The Soviet Union and many Asian regimes slaughtered millions of people.

[Locrian]

That’s a no brainer. No. No forgiveness and certainly no forgetfulness. Religions’ atrocities are the main reason to get rid of it.

MILLIONS of people killed, tortured, forced to change ways due to armies, control, hierarchies of political nature, etc.

As far as the “good” it has done, there isn’t a single epiphany a churchgoer could not experience by sitting on the toilet Sunday morning with a crossword puzzle.

Humans are good and they don’t need a crutch. It is not needed, and the history behind any religion you can possibly think of (don’t go there) is about control and politics and blocking others from influencing us to understand. Shoe on the other foot, yadda, yadda. Nope, not us. It’s YOU (insert religion) who cause the hatred!!

The fact that thousands of women being killed for being women, Jews killed as a “cleansing”, AIDS currently being taught as a divine disease (Africa) and Katrina happened all due to homosexuals is proof enough to call for an eradication, a banning and penalties brought to those who still need an imaginary friend at the age of 40.

If you want to compare events like The Crusades against someone who turned his life around in Wisconsin after lighting a candle in a drafty chapel, it’s clear that the abrupt history of millions due to religious violence is the main reason for getting rid of it.

I find the example of the “Few days before Christmas I was led to a church basement to help a young amputee” as nothing other than appalling. As the story says, “The purpose of the party was to raise that money.” An innocent victim of religious inspired violence that needs money, I don’t need to go to a church to help the girl get a limb. And money doesn’t come from prayer. Neither does peace. This story does not need a church to make it meaningful. It needs people and money, which it already has. WE make a difference.

If more proof is needed, there’s always the bible, and I mean from cover to cover. Separation, segregation, a reason to draw lines, to inhibit the common man from understanding that what a few say is NOT the truth (the sun orbits the Earth, women are secondary, war is justified) are just a few of the examples surrounded by indirected arrogance (original sin), human and animal sacrifice (all over the place in that story), contradictions abound and to start all this atrocity, it took an army. (???)

“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” - IA

Drop the crutch, realize you’re nothing more than an organism that would never deserve such an astoundingly inappropriate gift as eternal life for saying thank you and never swearing, and feel even more powerful knowing that priests, nuns and even eucharistic hosts at your Sunday services are nothing more than idiotic organisms who can never achieve your level of understanding… by choice.

[Kobal2]

@ITR_champion

We should also remember, for instance, that Chairman Mao killed far more people on an average day of his 27-year dictatorship than the Spanish Inquisition killed in its entire existence. (Out of curiosity, I wonder whether the three books that inflamed you so much mentioned that?)

This is a misleading statement.
Firstly, of course, is the “less evil” fallacy (I’m sure it has a real name, but I’m tired) - even if that claim is 100% true, what is its point ? Genghis Khan killed more people than Mao, does that make Mao a pristine example of human behaviour we should cotton to ? Comparing the size of the skull piles is more than useless : it’s dehumanizing, utterly heartless, and vile.

Secondly, and more to the point, it’s misleading because it is true in the strictest of senses - the Spanish Inquisition didn’t kill that many people (that we know of, anyway). Because that’s not what it set out to do. On the other hand, they kidnapped a lot of people. And stole their property. And held them in jail incommunicado for no reason. And tortured them, again and again until they either converted, or died. Naturally, the overwhelming majority of the victims “converted” rather than choose certain martyrdom. One sympathises.
End result : the actual death toll is light (circa 5k that we’re sure of), and if that’s all you gauge monsters by, then the Inquisition comes out smelling like acrid, black, burning roses of course. But of course, that’d be a dishonest rhetorical trick, and you less of a person for trying to use it.

Not that I’d need to know all that to think ill of someone trying to whitewash the goddamn Inquisition. But it’s the rancid cherry on the steaming turdcake.

[Noone_Special]

There are plenty of present atrocities (by religious groups / for religious causes) to deal with right now; we can get back to the past ones when we’re finished with the current…

[Laudenum]

@Cyningablod

Cite?

But let’s assume for a moment that that’s an accurate statement (which I highly doubt).

The Spanish Inquisition was just one brief example of the atrocities wrought by religions around the globe, on every continent and in every nation, over at least the past three thousand years. You really think that Communist (“atheist”) atrocities from only the 20th century come anywhere CLOSE to matching the volume of tears shed, flesh flayed, and blood spilt by religions, over the millennia? :eek: As Sean O’Casey once said, “Politics has slain its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands.” I’m pretty sure any history book is a cite for that!

Actually, I think you are overestimating how many people died in the past - human population has only gotten really big in recent centuries.

Tot up all casualties of religious wars (not resource wars with a random religious element) and all Athiest mass-murders, and I’d say the Athiests may have the field.

Don’t forget that before WWI most wars wouldn’t even reach 100,000 causualties.

[tagos]

@Laudenum

Actually, I think you are overestimating how many people died in the past - human population has only gotten really big in recent centuries.

Tot up all casualties of religious wars (not resource wars with a random religious element) and all Athiest mass-murders, and I’d say the Athiests may have the field.

Don’t forget that before WWI most wars wouldn’t even reach 100,000 causualties.

There have been no mass-murders in the name of atheism.

[Laudenum]

@tagos

There have been no mass-murders in the name of atheism.

Actually there have - see the murders of religious peoples in China and Russia for the express purpose of eliminating religion.

[Der_Trihs]

@Calculon

Just because you don’t understand them, or really have any desire to understand them doesn’t mean that they are “mushy”. I think the problem with the SDMB is that there is a number of vocal atheists whose only debate tactic is to ridicule and shout down religious believers, and never actually engage in the arguments made.

Nonsense. We see it all the time, believers who refuse to define their beliefs in any but the vaguest terms, who shift goalposts like crazy, who claim that God is unknowable in one breath and then claim they know what he is like or wants in the next.

@Calculon

And what common elements do they share that allows you to deduce that they are all detrimental to society.

That they are all based on the denial of reality and of reason. And that they have a history of being grossly detrimental to society.

@Calculon

Communists see themselves as decidedly non-religious or atheists. To call them religious goes against your earlier claim that religious people are those that call themselves religious.

No, I claimed that most do. Communists being the most prominent exception.

@Calculon

So I ask you, what precisely is a religion, and how does that lead to the conclusion that they are all evil?

An organized system of beliefs that exists in denial of facts, rational thought, or both. And religion is destructive because denying facts and logic is destructive. It is in effect evil because it requires the denial of reality, which makes doing good nearly impossible even for the well meaning. And religious thought by nature goes hand in hand with utter ruthlessness. There’s nothing better for turning off people’s moral sense.

@Calculon

Just to add one more thing I think this is by far a too simplistic view of what actually went on in Russia. One thing that you have to remember is that Stalin did not kill all those people personally, he motivated others to do it for him. And the prevailing ideology of Communism stated that religion (in this particular case Russian Orthodox Christianity) was an enemy of the state and needed to be eradicated. So if one actually bothers to look into the history of Russia, into the persecution of Christians or into the activities of the Society of the Godless you will find accounts of people killing and persecuting Christians precisely because of their Communist / atheist ideology. The interpretation of history that communist atheism was only incidental to what went on is really an apologist distortion of history advanced by the neo-atheist fundamentalists and not proper history.

No, it is an attempt to defend ourselves from the relentless attempts of the believers to label all atheists mass murdering demonic monsters. Communists killed Christians for the same reasons Christians killed everyone who wasn’t Christian back when they could do so; the goal of both Christianity and Communism the the annihilation of all other systems of belief. They are quite similar in many ways.

Atheism can’t drive anyone to do anything; it is simply disbelief in gods and has no commandments, no demands to make anyone do anything. It wasn’t atheism that drove the Communists to kill, that’s why you see that behavior from Communists and not atheists in general. Something believers trying to spread blood libel against us consistently ignore.

@Laudenum

Actually, I think you are overestimating how many people died in the past - human population has only gotten really big in recent centuries.

Tot up all casualties of religious wars (not resource wars with a random religious element) and all Athiest mass-murders, and I’d say the Athiests may have the field.

Don’t forget that before WWI most wars wouldn’t even reach 100,000 causualties.

Communism isn’t atheism. And “(not resource wars with a random religious element)” is a cop out since it defines “religious war” so narrowly as to be outright deceptive. Especially when used in the same post that tries to lump together atheists and Communists. You are trying to blame as much evil as possible on atheists, while claiming that people who ran around committing genocide with the express purpose of spreading Christianity don’t count as religious warriors if they looted their victims in the process.

[Quartz]

Did all these religious atrocities and wars really have religion as their root? Or was the use of religion a crutch for politics? Examples here might be the Crusades, the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland

[Der_Trihs]

@Quartz

Did all these religious atrocities and wars really have religion as their root? Or was the use of religion a crutch for politics?

How often does any large scale human behavior have one, and only one motive? If that’s the standard you are going by, then how can you claim that politics was the cause either?

[Latro]

Even if you hold that religion was just a tool for murder, why not get rid of that tool?
It’s one means less to commit murder.
AK47’s are a handy tool for murder, therefore in the civilised world people are not allowed to carry AK47’s around.
Sure they can use axes or machetes or nationalism, patriotism, racism. Still you took one tool away, which makes it just a bit harder and that’s good.

[Noone_Special]

@Quartz

Did all these religious atrocities and wars really have religion as their root? Or was the use of religion a crutch for politics? Examples here might be the Crusades, the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland

Meaningless distinction – in the past, religion has been one of – and arguably one of the most important – means of controlling populations and of garnering power in general. Religion was (and to the extent we let them be, still is) politics and power.
Atheism, OTOH, being a lack of theism and of religion, is not and cannot be a Power-building ploy.

@Latro

…
AK47’s are a handy tool for murder, therefore in the civilised world people are not allowed to carry AK47’s around.
…

Not that I disagree with you (the full sentiment you expressed) but… Congratulations, you have just turned this into a Second Amendment thread…