Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Bullshit. Since atheists are not deceived and distracted by fairytales about an afterlife and imaginary beings rewarding us for good intentions, we know that the only thing that keeps us from descending into the abysmal life of our Mesolithic ancestors is civilization. Civilization works only because we make it work and we make it work by following the rules we've spent twelve thousand years developing. Not because somebody will punish us for violating them, but because we are pack-social animals by instinct and we want the pack to thrive. We all have our weak moments of anger and selfishness and irresponsibility (and perhaps intoxication), but most people, most of the time, do what it takes to keep civilization running more or less smoothly, because it is in their own self-interest and in the interest of their pack-mates.
One of those rules is that we don't use violence against each other because if we did, we'd all have to divert so much of our attention and other resources to protecting ourselves against each other that civilization would grind to a halt.
We're allowed to use violence in self-defense against someone else who lost his connection to civilization and initiated violence first, but that's a last resort.
Wars start because deep down inside we are indeed still a pack-social species rather than herd-social. We've learned to override that instinct and build ever-larger packs, learning to live in harmony and cooperation with strangers. But every now and then our pack-social instinct overcomes us.
The reason I'm taking this odd twist of reasoning is that the O.P. obviously was intended to indict atheism as a force that works to the detriment of civilization, when in fact it is religion that does so. Particularly the monotheistic religions of Abraham. These religions reinforce mankind's tribal instinct. Regardless of the messages of peace and brotherhood and tolerance attributed to their prophets, in practice the followers of Christianity, Judaism and Islam invariably divide the world into "us" and "them" along religious lines. Frequently they can't even maintain a sense of community within their own sect, but divide into "Catholic" and "Protestant" tribes or "Orthodox" and "Reform" tribes or "Sunni" and "Shiite" tribes which then set about murdering each other (or in the case of the Jews tossing rocks at ambulances that have the nerve to operate on the Sabbath).
So if you want to talk about torture, it's Christians torturing Muslims. It's okay! They're from the enemy tribe!
Leo, that is not just an extraordinary assertion but an outrageous and hateful one. It is a textbook example of trolling, which is a violation of the rules of SciForums. If you ever say anything this mean-spirited again I will personally initiate the process of banning you permanently. If you wish to defend yourself against this accusation then, in accordance with the scientific method, you are hereby challenged to provide EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE for this extraordinary claim. Not just some crap from a racist crackpot Holocaust-denialism website but some REAL SCIENCE. Pending that satisfaction of the requirements of science, you may not pursue this line of discourse on this thread or any other, or it will be treated as trolling.
Well hang on there dude. Yes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki had factories that supplied the war effort, but they were not prime military targets. The Americans realized that the Japanese sense of honor would never allow them to surrender, that we would have to invade the country and occupy it and they would still keep fighting until the last six-year-old girl was gunned down while charging a battalion of Marines with her dead daddy's samurai sword. This would result in something like seventy million Japanese casualties, several million American casualties, and the obliteration of an ancient culture. We decided that we had to prove to the Japanese that they were fighting an enemy without honor, so we vaporized a couple of hundred thousand civilians who had no reason to expect an attack and never got to look at their enemy's face. It worked. A shaken Japan quickly surrendered to the Western devil with no honor. I'm not saying this because I agree with the American reasoning, I think smarter leaders could have figured out a better way. But this was the reasoning. It was not a military decision, it was psychological. It was in fact terrorism: we "terrorized" the Japanese people into supporting a policy they did not approve of, by killing their civilians. That is exactly what terrorism is. One of the most unfortunate things about the nuclear attacks on Japan is that they succeeded. Every terrorist dirtbag on earth knows that American terrorism against Japan worked, so they think there's a chance that their terrorist attacks will accomplish their goals.
The Law Of Unintended Consequences. It bites you in the butt every single time.
You discount the pack-social instinct. Everyone has loved ones. Everyone cares about their welfare. Civilization exerts pressure on us to increase the number of people we consider loved ones, so that we care about the people on the other side of the planet who are no more than abstractions. Abrahamic religion does precisely the opposite. It encourages us to regard those people as a rival pack, an enemy tribe, of infidels, heathens, ragheads, great Satans, whatever... so it's okay not to care about them.
That, in a nutshell, is why I despise Abrahamism. It works against civilization. It is something we simply have to outgrow before the tribal instincts it reinforces destroy us.
