Millions of people have been killed in the name of some god, and most wars have had religion as a central cause. Religion was explicitly behind the Crusades, the Inquisitions, and the mass killings of “witches” and heretics. Many of these heretics were only guilty of expressing ideas that the churches didn’t like, but are commonly accepted now in science and social reform. With the threat of heresy, the churches effectively set back humankind’s advancement by hundreds of years. More recently, the leaders on both sides in WWII (like in many other wars) exhorted their people that God was on their side, and used religion to unite them. Religion is also at the root of most of today’s international problems. Just imagine how much more peaceful the world would be without beliefs in gods causing so much strife.
I always enjoy the argument brought by Christians claiming that Stalin or others were atheist and they killed millions. Stalin didn’t kill anyone by exhorting atheism is on their side. He didn’t use atheism to unite the masses in the slaughter of life. Stalin was immoral which has nothing to do with him being an atheist.
5 Comments
July 4, 2009 at 5:58 am
A sociological analysis of religion tells us that (irrespective of its metaphysical truth or falsity) it is, like any other mythos (communism, etcetera), a system of legitimising public action – in addition to, and often separate to, its role in people’s personal lives.
By public action, I mean action by a state or in regards to a state (or nation), or in regards to ideas of state or nation.
The point of the communist examples is not to say that atheism causes slaughter, but that there will always be some system offering potential legitimacy to various extreme actions: Ethnic nationalism, faith in rationalist planning, desire to save the world, faith in God, faith in Empire.
One should remember that the spanish inquisition was under the aegis of local government, not the church, and was created by the king and queen, a tool whereby they could supposedly prevent former Jews and Muslims from supporting another Moorish conquest of andalusia.
I would ask you what you propose as a solution to the supposed problem of religious belief? The drive to eliminate sin from society is no doubt a dangerous one, but the drive to eliminate religion/myth/human irrationality is potentially just as dangerous n the wrong hands, and certainly just as impossible. Hitler and Stalin might not have been spurred on by atheism, but they were undoubtedly spurred against religion: only think of the dead believers, Bonnhoeffer, Niemoller, Sophie Scholl.
Religion, like the sin it aims to repress, is a constant in all human conduct. And it hides in echoes within the minds of the most rational of us – why else to we all spend so much time discussing it, or for that matter attacking it?
July 4, 2009 at 10:27 am
Come on, the solution is simple, although requires a bit of time. Open it all up for debate on national television. Open it up for debate in schools and let both sides openly and freely provide their evidence. TEACH critical thinking skills, reasoning, logic, common sense in our schools. I am not saying we outlaw it or make it illegal but at least give our kids the opportunity to decide for themselves. Instead, we teach them superstition. If someone wants to believe in ghost, then provide the evidence to support it. If they want to claim a snake talks, then prove it or provide reasonable evidence in support of such claims. They can believe it all they want but it doesn’t give them the right to deceive children and their young minds before they have learned the skills to reason things of such great magnitude. We do not expect a child to decide which person they will marry at birth or to drive a car until they have reached an age that they are capable of handling things of such magnitude. We hope we teach them the reasoning and critical thinking skills so that when the time comes, they can decide which actions to take and how to take those actions.
education is the best policy.
If someone tells us God has plans for us or God wanted this or that, then we should openly be able to say, “how do you know” and “can you prove it”? or does it just make you feel good to say it, make you feel safe? Honest and openness is likely the best policy.
or, we can continue to hide our children from facts, mold their mind to follow what we want them to learn and belief. I teach my kids about science and history and blah..blah..blah. I have taken them to a few different churches to give them a sense of the God’s and belief systems and of course we speak of it. If I am asked about God and if he is real, i can only say, I do not know. I can say based on the lack of evidence, historical evidence to demonstrate other Gods of which are believed to be myths in our day and time, similarity of stories between gods, the hell of the egyptians(long before christianity) being used for the Christian hell (yet the egyptians knew more about their hell than the christians and then of course we can reason these and other claims and evidence to logically and reasonable determine what is real or not. Of course we would want to also learn about the psychological aspects of humans and why we often do some of the things we do.
i apologize for the sloppy manner of my writing. i often don’t re-read and never check spelling or grammer of comments. something I should work to improve or try to get it correct the first time instead of just typing away and being wordy…haha. actually, i will work to improve on this and take less time replying to all the emails and hate mails i get. I think i will just stop relying to most hatemail and that would give me more time to reply more properly as you have done in you comment to this post.
July 4, 2009 at 7:44 am
Sorry to tell you but money is more powerful than religion. All of the wars are over money. The Crusaders accepted the religion excuse to conquer, pillage, plunder and use the proceeds to increase their wealth. Of course, conquering the world is not easy so a lot of blood gets wasted. But it’s good for business selling weapons, whores, and reporters.
All of the churches want money, not more poor church members. Pastors fight over rich people like hungry dogs over a bone.
July 4, 2009 at 11:00 am
NOW, I can probably agree with that statement and realize it is a VERY good point you make. I typically look at religion as the cause and ignore the money aspect. Although I have pointed out the obvious greed of the church, it actually applies to ALL humanity. I have spent much of my life helping others and helping animals in need and although I have spent considerable amounts of my personal income and time (much more than any “religious” type I have met) I would still consider myself motivated by money.
Although what you state is obvious, it is one of those things I guess we train ourselves to ignore, at times. Maybe in an attempt to make ourselves rationalize the excess many of us live with while others suffer for lack of food or clean water.
Anyway, I am glad you posted your comment as I should start to look at this from a broader perspective.
So, what do you think? Money is the power behind much of the evil and good (however the good that comes from money is often driven by greedy desires) but religion has often been the glue, the guilt and fear that made it more appealing and powerful. Anyway, I would like to get more of your thoughts as I enjoy thinking of these things and building a greater understanding in the end. the more we all discuss such things, the more we develop an improve and come to realize the true reasons.
I watched the daily show a few weeks ago (on the internet as I don’t have tv service and may decide to do without it because of the greed of cable companies) and he had basically made a comment for why everything is as it is in america, and the world. GREED. anyway, thanks for the comment and have a great 4th of july.
peace
July 4, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Religion helps people feel better when they are killing other people for their stuff. Missionaries came to the US while land was stolen by civilized means.
I subscribe to the importance of education, but it is ironic that the light out of the Dark Ages was the Catholic Church, even with the restricted perspective allowed by church teachings.
Knowledge is power, but bad facts leads to tragic consequences also.
At this point, reality TV and legalized drugs are the best hope of keeping this country together. There is no state religion, and the current President appears ambivalent in embracing his Muslim upbringing.
The new true believers are fear mongering Global Warming and creating hysteria to keep the dumb people preoccupied with Green Peace, PETA, and of course Anti-Tobacco!
The US allowed tobacco and booze kill the original native American nations and keep them under control until they discovered casino’s!