Atheism vs. Religion Dead Horse Beating Round 473!

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The Catholic church is an integral part of life in Italy, Mussolini recognized that in much the same way MacArthur recognized the imperial family in Japan was intregal to the Japanese. In both cases, exclusion of such a core belief would have caused civil war. Just as with MacArthur and the Imperial family, Mussolini crippled the power of the church and "working with" is generous. This statement:

is quite confusing. Mussolini had already shown he was biased toward one specific religion (it was a political bias, granted, but it worked) -- targeting other religious groups is certainly not unexpected nor can motivation of such actions be attributed to athiesm. In fact, targeting anti-Catholic groups would actually aid in morale of Catholic supporters (it certainly did in Spain).

In Stalin's case, the civil war was already over -- the people had already decided the former dynasties had done things wrong. In a truly communist society, people cannot support both a church and the society; the people must completely support the government and the government, in turn, must support the church. Stalin got greedy and didn't want to support any religion or allow people's loyalties to be divided between church and state. By comparing Stalin to previous regimes, and wanting him to behave the same, you entirely ignore the circumstances of how he (and Lenin) rose to power.

Even the bible states you cannot have two masters. As I said before, a communist regime must have complete support of it's people. China used executions to ensure control -- complete and unquestioning control. Such acts are more representative of the values and ethics of the individual governing than any religious or nonreligious bend of the person (history is filled with religious examples of similar acts).

To get a little closer to the topic: the parents of this girl chose poorly. The statement of 'this wouldn't have happened if the parents were athiest' is only partially true. The exact instance would not have happened, but seeking healing through prayer is really not any worse than the (perhaps athiestic) parent who chooses to follow unreliable holistic remedies (and I realize I'm going to be attacked now by those who firmly believe in holistic medicine, but I did say unreliable; some holistic methods work for specific ailments).

 

Everybody should use Wikipedia more often. It's really cool.

I take every bet that Mussolini's rule didn't result in any religiously targeted persecution in Spain. It is things like this, that scream confusion, that make your argument appear, shall we say, shallow - and make me wanna skip the rest just in order to not ruin my afternoon.

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That Nazis murdered Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe and Dietrich Bonhoeffer doesn't mean Hitler worked against the Church(es). That's simply false. If you knew anything about Germany's protestant churches during the time of the Third Reich, in particular the mandatory 'Gleichschaltung' of all protestant churches in Germany under the egregious Reichsbischof Müller, you wouldn't say that. Müller for instance was a stout party member, who held the idea of "Christ the Aryan" (or a "heroic Jesus") and championed such religious views during his time at the helm of the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche. Müller was perfectly capable of reconciling elements of Nazi Mysticism with his brand of Christianity. Even though Müller's views were met with internal resistance, I wouldn't at all characterise the role of the Deutsche Evangelische Kirche as a body as non-cooperation. In light of that it becomes obvious that Atheism does not properly describe Nazism, because for that Nazism was too heterogeneous.

That's just the more egregious generalisations and misrepresentations that immediately caught my eye. I won't go on to keep this brief. Let's be frank - your apparently limited and cursory knowledge of history seriously flaws the conclusions you draw from it. No offence, I urge you - if you make historical analogies, do proper research. Really!

 

Yes NOG people are willing to kill for positive belief in something be it that ginger haired people are evil or that people with small noses commune with the devil. My point was that very few people go out and kill because they do not believe in something. Every "atheist" wickedness you list has as much to do with atheism as not eating pork leads to flying airplanes into skyscrapers. Yes the people commiting the crimes you said may have been atheists but they did not commit them because they did not believe in god. They commited them because they believed that they were rivals. Much of what you bring up is related to communism and communism such as it has been implemented in the real world has worked pretty much exactly like a religion. It has been all about faith and doctrine, sure there have been no divine deity but other than that it functions have been just like religion in North Korea they are even more or less deifying their great leader. Communism persecuting other religions is no different from protestants fighting catholics or muslims hindus. Atheism is just a small part of communism doctrine just like not eating pork is a minor part of islam. Probably not the thing to inspire you to go out and wack some infidels.

 

I thought it was only round 472.

Thanks for the move.




joacqin

Please read the wiki histories I mentioned.

NOG

Please let him do so before you reply to him again.



Other then that I'm not sure what N. Korea is-it may be an absolute monarchy.

 

Try buddhism, or taoism, but I guess you can say that about 2,5 thousand years is relatively new...

 

Re: this thread's title:

Nice.

That's all I have to contribute.

 

To keep things to a minimum, I'll just respond to this:

No, they didn't do so because they didn't believe in gods, they did so because they believed everyone who did believe in gods were insane, manipulative, conspiratorial, outright evil, and/or bent on destroying society.

That's an extreme form of atheism, yes, but it is atheism nonetheless.

But that wasn't the statement made. If they had said "atheist parents wouldn't have done this", I'd have no problem. What they actually said was, "if her parents had been atheists, she'd be alive right now."

That blatantly implies that nothing can (or would have) gone wrong in an atheist household.

Buddhism and Taoism (at least per my understanding of them) both include supernatural beliefs. Therefore, they don't fit the typical definition of atheism. Atheism (usually used) isn't just that gods don't exist, but that nothing supernatural exists. No gods, no demons, no magic, no miracles, no ghosts (or at least, if there are ghosts, they're part of a natural process/cycle).


And as to this thread's title:
YAY!!

 

Of all the points I made to argue semantic differences between "if her parents had been atheists, she'd be alive right now" and "'this wouldn't have happened if the parents were athiest" seems a bit of a cop out. Try focusing on the big picture rather than the trivia.

 

Blades, are you saying you have heard an agnostic, someone who isn't sure and doesn't know whether or not gods exist, say that anyone who is sure is a self-deluding idiot, brainwashed mass, or is mentally disabled?

I must say, if so, I am shocked. I'll believe you, but it still seems shocking to me.

 

My eldest Brother and his whole drunken crew of friends. I never drink when I visit him, hoping he'll do the same. They are always present, all single losers who drink and think they know everything. It's not worth listening to the tirade, not just on this issue either. They know EVERYTHING! Meatheads!

 

What's the old saying ... Those of you who think you know everything are annoying those of us who do.

 

That would of made a nice signature phrase....

 

The problem with blaming any particular event on atheism as a religion/system of belief/organized group, is that I would say as soon as becomes one of those things for people, it takes the place of religion anyway, and therefore stops being atheism.

Okay... that may or may not have made sense. Atheism, for me, is the lack of conformance to any social, legal or political norms that are somehow based on religion, be it the presence or lack thereof. So, I wont do what a priest tells me, but equally I wont do what Richard Dawkins tells me. I respect him, but that doesnt mean he and I would share the same views on the death penalty, for example, and nor should we.

I define atheism as being more about a lack of religion than in believing in any particular thing. I'd have a lot more in common with someone who believed in God but didnt believe in the Church/the Bible etc than an atheist who rigorously followed a particular person's teachings.

So, in the case of Stalin, if he used fear and hatred of religion to incite or allow violence, its got nothing to do with atheism. Its got to do with power and manipulation. Power and manipulation happen to be common tools of religions, just like governments. Its all about control. Hitler may not have liked religion, but he encouraged people to sing songs of praise about him and venerate Mein Kampf as a sort of Bible - thats plenty of control right there.

 

So, if they know everything, then they aren't agnostics, are they? 'Cause then they'd know if there was a god, right? I'm confused here.

Now you're playing with definitions. That'll just screw everyone up. In that sense, atheism is pretty much always a religion, in that it fills that part of a person's worldview that religions all fill. Religions answer questions like 'What happens to me when I die?', 'Is there a god?', and 'What's the answer to life, the universe, and everything?' Atheism answers those with 'Nothing, you just die', 'No, there isn't', and '42'. No, wait, that last one is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sorry. The last answer is 'There isn't one' for atheism. Regardless, that isn't exactly religion.

Yeah, that's not atheism. Not even the same arena. I think that's called secularism, but I'm not sure. That's not a faith/religious/supernatural issue, though, but a socio-political one. Calling that atheism is about the same as calling an orange atheism. Sort of. Sorry.

And I think that's almost verging on agnosticism, but I'm not sure.

Atheism is the belief that there is no god, no supernatural, and nothing when you die. The material, energetic universe we all sense with our seven (that's right, you have 7) senses is all there is, and there's nothing beyond it. Mind you, 'it' can extend farther than anyone ever suspected, even to other dimentions where the most basic laws of physics are different, but still no gods, no devils, no souls or spirits, nothing.

It's control, yes, but atheism (as defined above, not what you defined it as) is as good at control as theism is.

 

Spoiler

I once got handed a booklet by Jehova's Witnesses at the train station, and thought what the heck, I'll read it. I read an article about conduct of Jehova's Witnesses during the second world war, and they reported two things:
1) Jehova's Witnesses refused to ascribe to the nazi perspective of racial superiority, characterizing it as outright wicked. They claimed to be the only branch of christianity that didn't cave to the pressure.
2) As a result of their non-cooperation, they faced the same persecution that jews, handicapped, non-arians and communists faced.

Reading it, I thought: That's a fine example of their integrity, big respect to them! I was ever so slightly warmed to the Jehova's Witnesses. So I read the next article.
It was an article about Thailand. Having just returned from a 3-month internship there, my curiosity was piqued. They reported about the sex industry which is rife there, and the high occurence of AIDS. They went on to attribute this epidemic to a lack of culture and morality of the Thai people. I found that statement going a bit too far already, but the article was far from over. It explained how that their lack of love for Jesus was the cause of their backwardness and suffering, and that embracing him will solve all their problems. When I read that the Thai deserved to be punished for being heathens, by an AIDS epidemic, I just tore the book up. I was offended and ashamed in so many ways, I felt the need to destroy this booklet that encourages dumb, simplistic reasoning.

To think that white christian tourists are taking advantage of the Thai, and facilitating the spread of the AIDS virus there... Furthermore, not only did this pretentious religion originate from MY continent, it presumes to discriminate and pass judgement on their people, while also seeking converts there. Considering that I'd never heard of buddhists gloating when christians befell a misfortune, I was nearly ready to become one.

pplr, the story above about Thailand describes a similar kind of reasoning as I think you displayed in this thread. Atheists are not an organized group, they have no unified spiritual goals or ideals. Some are more tolerant of theists than others, but even the intolerant ones aren't organized. The term wouldn't even exist if it weren't used by theists to distinguish them. If your reasoning is, that atheists are similar as a result of their lack of belief in a god, then that's just silly. It's such an irrelevant and minor (lack-of-a-)characteristic to an atheist, you should realise that it's pointless to make any kind of generalizations on that basis.

 

Atheists do have a unifying idea (that there is no God). Christians do was well (despite the wide diversity of Christians). Also by asking a couple of questions (such as what do they think of the theory of evolution) it is possible to categorize (broadly) a particular Christian as Fundamentalist, Mainstream, Liberal, and so on. So in spite of the differences between Christians it isn't impossible to get a feel (even it is slight) for what type of a Christian you are speaking with.

One of the things talk radio has arguably done, within the realm of politics, is create a certain core of individuals that are whipped up and angry. I'm not an expert but many have claimed that this is a rather toxic and unhelpful addition to the realm of politics (though in all honesty there has been a lot of vicious propagandizing in the past).

My feeling of at least some of the atheists whose comments I've been reading have been whipped up in a similar manner (at least on the other website-I apologize if being insulted every time I visit there affects how I comment here as I do understand these are 2 different websites with 2 different groups of people, but emotions can carry).

Moreover if the radio talk show hosts of atheism come to define its mainstream that leads to at least some similar toxicity, irrationality, and so on.

I would feel embarrassed if I was a JW and saw the booklet in the story. I think the person was rightfully disturbed. But just as such a booklet that raises one group of people up and trashes another is a bad thing when done by a religious group it is also a bad thing when done by an atheist group/figurehead.

I can sympathize with someone who just honestly feels there is no God-that is a personal call. But when different people repeatedly claim that there was never any atrocity related to atheism like there are to various religions and they each give similar reasoning, I find that shocking as well as bad history.

It also tells me that however disorganized atheists may be there are still trends and possibilities that exist within atheism as there are trends within the rest of society. And one of the unfortunate possibilities within society, as a whole, is the ability for major figures to whip people up into doing harmful things or at least making society less informed or tolerant as it was before.

I think there is a degree to which some figures may be doing that within atheism now. Programs defining religion as the root of evil are part of that. And so is using word semantics to rewrite history to the us good & you bad line of thinking.

 

The only occurrences where atheists seemed to actively attack theists in the past, is in communist revolutions. I'm not the first one to say this on the thread, but the self-proclaimed 'communist' nations of the world were/are everything to do with a dictatorial grab for power, and almost nothing to do with the communist ideology of Karl Marx. The motivation behind the removal of churches was not an altruistic attempt to remove misinformation and preserve an organized atheist society, but rather to consolidate power and social control for the benefit of the rulers. Marx's ideas about religion were merely a front to justify this monopolization of power and social control. The evidence for their motivation reveals itself, when churches are later allowed to operate in the countries once again, but under strict guidelines. It was never about the message of the church for dictators, but about the influence the church had. Once the church agrees to complete subservience to the state, it is allowed back in.

You also force us to make a choice: either BOTH atheism and theism must be held responsible for atrocities committed, or neither. While I still don't think you can hold atheism accountable in the same way, if forced to choose I'd go with neither. {result for you, but remember, i don't speak for all atheists}
Organized religion has, since the begining of history, been a tool for ruthless people who desire power. The basics of religion - belief in God, prayer and all that - doesn't kill people. It's when the institution is abused to further the goals of those who control it, that the problems start. Religion motivates people into committing inhuman actions, for this they use fear, rewards, and any kind of fallacious arguments they can think of to persuade people. The root of the problem is the corrupt power abuse, and I admit that this isn't inherent to only religious institutions and ideologies.
The reason I think religion should be held accountable for atrocities, is that all religions display similar fallacies when persuading people to commit atrocities. The punishments and rewards (heaven and hell) in holy wars are tied to the religion itself. If people suffered no real consequences from not joining a holy war, but were persuaded by the religious belief in the reward/punishment, then religion can and should be held accountable.
Atheism has never made a single unified claim to an unproven reward/punishment, so atheists as a whole can't be held accountable in this way.

I'm sorry if that was longwinded, but I hope you got my point.

 

coineineagh

I'll agree religion has been used by ruthless people. But, looking at Russia, Khrushchev started to suppress the Eastern Orthodox Church again even after it submitted to the state. This means there may actually be some "altruistic" desire to attack religion on the part of many communists.

Also don't forget bigotry can stand alone as a reason for terrible things (in the same "altruistic" fashion). Sure some can manipulate it for their own ends but as they prop up bigotry within society to profit it can become a force of its own (thinking N. American slavery that used racism to justify itself and the racism outlived that particular system of slavery). Thus anti-religious bigotry can be as real as religious bigotry.

I think the atheist on the other website who told me it was a pity I wouldn't be murdered didn't make that comment out of a profit motive. But I did feel (at least at the time) it was made out of some kind of bigotry.