That's like saying we are naturally violent, therefore taking automatic weapons off of the street wouldn't make a difference. Obviously that's not true. Religion is the automatic weapon of ideologies.
The atrocities of Christianity
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
That's like saying we are naturally violent, therefore taking automatic weapons off of the street wouldn't make a difference. Obviously that's not true. Religion is the automatic weapon of ideologies.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
So you're saying all the many people burned at the stake as heretics, blasphemers, and witches by the church during the Middle Ages would have been murdered anyway if religion didn't exist? That doesn't make sense. These were people deemed evil specifically in a religious context. Without that context they would not have received that condemnation. Weird and annoying maybe. But certainly not deserving of death.
perhaps that would make sense if crimes involving guns and crimes involving religion were on par with each other.
If you insist on cherry picking history to make a point (that obviously isn't valid fro the majority) you could just as easily start talking about the atrocities of policemen, the atrocities of parents, etc etc
Obviously?
Making it more difficult for people to act on natural violence is one thing. Claiming the violence stems from a totally invented source is another.
Use some critical thinking here... In order to justify the belief that religion causes violence, religion must be valid and God real. It gives a cause- a source outside of ourselves.
No. I'm saying the natural violent tendencies would still have been there. We're not in entire disagreement, here. Where the disagreement is whether religion causes violence. It doesn't. It can, under the right conditions, allow an extremist a personal justification for the violence they are already inclined to do.
Reading above, I see where I said, "What they would have done, anyway." I think this is true- small scale. Murderers and the like. Serial killers... Well, what happens when a demented mind in History was in a position of religious or political power? It enabled him but did not cause the impetus to violence.
I agree that those cases- those deaths- could have been avoided by the removal of religious stigma. However, as I said above, think critically, here.
A peaceful person will not pick up a chainsaw and go chasing after a person because the bible told them to.
They will pick and choose what parts of the bible to live by and what not to.
A peaceful person will ignore a passage of the bible that advocates violence.
A violent person will not- I'm repeating myself at this point, aren't I?
You see an even greater incidents of death and abuse during the 1970's in cambodia or stalinist russia.
IOW society's that take a stance of zero tolerance to religion, far from having a better track record, have a worse one.
That might be so, but religions last longer than those ideologies. Where is Stalinism now? Where are the Khmer Rouge now?
I'm sorry, that makes no sense whatsoever. All religion has to do is have people who follow it in order for it to influence their thinking. I mean, by your logic, bigotry and racism doesn't cause violence, since none of those beliefs are real, either. You're not suggesting that, are you?
You really need to think these concepts through before you jump in.
You're arguing a straw man. No one has said religion is why humans are violent. No one has claimed it is the source of all violence. These claims have not been made.
That's not true. In fact, the opposite is true. Religion is one of the few things that can make otherwise peaceable people turn to violence. It makes parents smother their teenage daughters for "dressing like a westerner," and makes otherwise normal people shoot OB-GYNs for performing abortions. And this is to say nothing of the suicide bombers currently popular in fundamentalist Islam. Have you considered that if we follow your logic here, every suicide bomber must have had suicidal tendencies, since religion cannot possibly be a cause of suicide?
Who are you talking about? Which "demented mind in History?"
This is fantasy crafted to support your argument. Here, watch it crumble:
So then you agree that violence is caused by religion. You can't say this and then cook up some nonsensical contradiction and claim that this part therefore is irrelevant or isn't true. If religion causes death--which you just admitted--then it causes violence.
Of course the will, and they have. Do you live in a treehouse, or something? Where does this naivete come from?
Not necessarily. Plenty of otherwise peaceful people have been reduced to violence by their holy text or holy order. My goodness, you realize that some of the 9/11 hijackers were college-educated family men? They were ordinary people pushed to violence by the fundamentalist teachings of their particular orders, and influenced by really bad people. Mohammad Atta wasn't strangling cats in his backyard or anything.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Neverfly..you seem to assume that because religion is manmade, or at least has evolved historically among humans, it is incapable of causing violence. Why? Nazism was a manmade system of thought and look at all the violence IT inspired and continues to inspire.
He seems to be under the misapprehension that a cause of violence must be the cause of violence. In other words, if you say religion is a cause of violence, you must be saying that violence wouldn't exist without religion. This is obviously an incorrect interpretation of the argument, and I've no idea where he came up with it, but there it is.
Religion is man made but
Disagree , ridding the world of religion would change our Natural state, a Gnostic view of the Planet would envigor our appreciation for this Planet
Just to be clear Gnostic is not a religion
No, I'm not saying that. You're own counter arguments defeat your claim on me: Invoking Godwins Law.
If it wasn't religion, it would be something else- like Naziism.
Do you not see? We justify our own violence. Whether by religion or some other man made concept... all are just justifications for our own violence.
Bigotry and racism are like violence- a tendency. Religion is the concept, bigotry is a behavior.
River:
Gnostic, like atheism, is a lack of belief.
If it wasn't religion, it would be something else- like Naziism.
Do you not see? We justify our own violence. Whether by religion or some other man made concept... all are just justifications for our own violence.
Bigotry and racism are like violence- a tendency. Religion is the concept, bigotry is a behavior.
River:
Gnostic, like atheism, is a lack of belief.
As an electronics technician, I don't have the luxury of throwing out the whole circuit board because it doesn't work. It is my job to find the part, the chip or part that is causing the board not to work. In the same way, atheists are ever eager to throw out religion, as a whole, when religion is not causing the problem. I know lots of Christians and they don't kill anyone; they don't burn witches or do harm to others. It might be more sensible to identifiy which bible passage you think is causing christians to murder people.
Or not. Maybe there would be less violence, less death. There's no rule that states man must maintain a certain level of violence. That's like saying that without guns, we'd still have as many violent homicides in the US every year. Clearly we wouldn't, because the means for making death that easy would be gone.
You say that as if something that is a justification cannot also be a cause. This is untrue. While it is no doubt true that some abuse religion for their own personal gain, there are many others who are moved to immoral acts by religion. It isn't the same thing to everyone.
Possible, yes. Remove the justification for the impetus and some people will be led to less violence. I don't disagree with that.
However, it's just as possible for many people that they will justify their violence in other ways. You seem to believe that all human behavior is learned.
How little you understand human behavior, genetics and biology.
Perhaps you should study into it, rather than just being opinionated and forcibly declaring yourself "Smart."
Gnostic is the respect of our planet, Sophia to begin with. Your right Gnostic its not a belief, it is though a Natural understanding of the Natural world
As the Native Americans viewed the Planet and other indigenous people's all over the world
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
I see. So he's saying since there was a time when religion did not exist because it was manmade, and yet violence still existed, it can't be THE cause of violence. You're right. He's totally confused A cause of violence with THE cause of violence. Thanks and good posts!
It's just violence was how Christianity was brought into the world
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Religious intolerance and persecution IS a behavior caused by religion. I don't see how you can deny something so intuitively obvious. It's forcing you now to play alot of semantic games that only seem desperate attempts to shore up your own sinking thesis. I'm thinking I'll just back out and let Balerion takeover. He's essentially saying everything I want to say but only better!
The thing is that Gnostic's were very tolerant of thought if you care to look up, from the Gnostic beginings
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Ahh but then the Gnostics were one of those heretical sects wiped off the face of the earth by Christians. Same with many other sects. Christians had a very low tolerance threshold for competing religions.
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