[Izzy]

Heh... The Spiritual World thread got locked, oops. Anyway, I thought the discussion was interesting, and would love to continue, maybe in the appropriate thread this time. If possible, can the mods split the old thread starting here?

My original topic title was "Atheism vs. All: Debate Style", but I figured it could be hilarious interesting to having people claim why ____ is better than _____, possibly educational as well.

Common courtesy applies in this thread. Remember to attack the arguments people post, rather than the people themselves. If you're going to tease someone, do so cleverly.

I'd like to pick up from where we left off, but anyone can feel free to start us off. NO PREACHING. No threatening with Hell because of disbelief. If I see any of that, I will ask to have your post removed.

[Izzy]

Evolution. The "how long is a day" thing is the main thing that makes religion and evolution compatible.

It didn't say "God made things which eventually evolved into man." God made man, in his own image, and it was good. So, men were, according to the Bible, DESIGNED BY GOD, not made to evolve by God. Besides, if we just evolved from stuff, why would we be any more important than any other creatures that came from the same origin? Evolution isn't aimed at us.

[Guest]

i don think hte earth is 600 years old but i am i christian and i believe in the big bang because if u tell me the earthe is 6000 years old and i potasium test a rock and it gives me millions im a little bit of a sceptic but we dont know who wrote the bible and thats y i dont percieve it as law mearly guidlines and they should be taken as such

[hugemonkey]

Some people's psychological makeup is such that they are not comfortable with doubt. If religion (which I insist has no intrinsic requirement to limit itself to dogma) can provide comfort to such people, and if science can make no promises that comfort them, then religion has a legitimate place.

Doubt can be scary (I guess) but is "comfort" a good enough reason to believe in something? To me this amounts to "believing in something because it makes you feel good" and is akin to hedonism. Life is full of suffering and doubt and one can either learn to relish it as it actually is "warts and all" or one can delude oneself.

What religion offers is a wider world than science alone can provide. Most of us live in a world of rich, vivid imagination and emotions, etc. These aspects of every human's life have little to do with reason. It's an interesting thought exercise to ask oneself why they take comfort in science. The "cold hard knife of reason" is not there to offer anyone any comfort at all. What is it that gives a person their sense of wholeness and well-being? Can anyone live a productive life in the complete absence of these things?

Knowing about religion and religious stories will enrich anyone's life and should be an integral part of anyone's cultural education. The same could be said for reading fiction, or simply imagining fantastical worlds. My grandmother used to say life is more fun if you have an imagination. That being said I know what is real and what is imagination. I would much rather face an ugly truth than chase a beautiful lie.

I agree with you entirely that stopping one's quest for truth is not the most enlightened way to live one's life. I suggest that this quest can include much more than just the quest for new (cold and impersonal) factual information through science.

I see it the other way around I see the practice of Religion as being and empty pursuit (although comforting to some) while Science provides a rich and nuanced understanding of the universe that is even more amazing because it is true. That is what fills me with awe and wonder.

But religion is not, by definition, restricted to a reliance on dogma. That is where modern Pantheism, Panentheism, Unitarian Universalism, and quite a few other modern religions come in. These religions reject dogma as vehemently as any atheist.

I respectfully disagree with that definition.

Point taken. I only meant the word "dogma" in a a very limited sense, but I know it has lots of other cultural baggage associated with it.

Responses above in blue. This is getting good

[unreality]

Evolution. The "how long is a day" thing is the main thing that makes religion and evolution compatible.

I actually agree with Romulus here, Izzy. The Bible clearly isn't a historical account but rather a fable's aesop thing, it was written for shepherds and whatnot... they could comprehend a day much better than billions of years. And you could say that god designed the evolutionary process which LED to man.

While I don't agree (at all) with the basic premise of believing in a god, I think Romulus is noble in his attempt to conciliate science with his faith. I'm just glad that he's revising his faith and not the science to do it (opposite of what many theists do to make them "compatible").

i don think hte earth is 600 years old but i am i christian and i believe in the big bang because if u tell me the earthe is 6000 years old and i potasium test a rock and it gives me millions im a little bit of a sceptic but we dont know who wrote the bible and thats y i dont percieve it as law mearly guidlines and they should be taken as such

very wise skepticism So you think the big bang was planted by a god or some such? That sounds like a Deism/Christianity hybrid (I think if I were a theist I would be a deist)

Edited May 4, 2009 by unreality

[hugemonkey]

[Y]ou could say that god designed the evolutionary process which LED to man.

The cool thing about evolution is that is is a completely undesigned process. You don't need have a creator for it to work, just take extremely simple, replicating, chemical processes and add time and you will get the levels of complexity that you see in biological life today. Although it is undesigned it it is not random. When two individuals compete for a limited resource such as food, territory or mates; the one that is best at at competing for this resource will tend to become more numerous over time. This non-random mechanism is natural selection.

[Guest]

What is areligion without dogma? Merely a philosophy.

[Izzy]

Religion with dogma? Merely a cult, however popular.

[Guest]

Only a religion with nothing dogma. You're probably referring to Mormanism.

[Izzy]

You honestly believe Christianity is that much different from Mormonism?

[Guest]

What is areligion without dogma? Merely a philosophy.

Two questions.

1.) Can dogma be changed by those in authority? Every religion I know about has evolved, usually only grudgingly. The Christianity of Emperor Constantine is far different from that which you practice. What a modern religion does is allow dogma to evolve flexibly to keep up with the times.

2.) When you put your "faith" in scientists who know more than you do, even though you do not understand the basis of the "facts" that they have proclaimed, are you slipping into the realm of accepting dogma? Do you have to do all the science yourself, or even understand how it is done, in order to accept the authority of the scientists?

Quoting from the Wikipedia entry on dogma:

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

Would you dare to question, dispute, doubt or diverge from the established consensus of science? Assuming you are not an expert, and therefore not capable of advancing the knowledge in the field, people would view you as a fool to start pontificating about new theories. No, you accept the dogma until the scientific authority figures tell you otherwise. Just like religion.

Continuing with the Wikipedia entry on dogma:

At the core of the dogma concept is absolutism, infallibility, irrefutability, unquestioned acceptance (among adherents) and anti-skepticism.

This goes way beyond the dictionary definition of dogma and gives it a distinct negative connotation. Bran, would you accept the above characterization of dogma? Would you still stand by your statement if it was part of the accepted definition?

The dictionary definition is:

1. A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a church.

2. An authoritative principle, belief, or statement of ideas or opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true. See Synonyms at doctrine.

3. A principle or belief or a group of them: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present" Abraham Lincoln.

That quote by Lincoln evokes the need to change dogma from time to time. That's what humans do well: we adapt. If you can't accept anything but a dogmatic definition of dogma you're stuck in a circular argument

[akaslickster]

You honestly believe Christianity is that much different from Mormonism?

Yes. It is. The Christians have less children. Edited May 5, 2009 by akaslickster

[Guest]

I see the practice of Religion as being an empty pursuit (although comforting to some) while Science provides a rich and nuanced understanding of the universe that is even more amazing because it is true. That is what fills me with awe and wonder.

Science takes you into the laboratory and studies that "awe and wonder" of yours the way it studies laboratory rats. Religion will nurture it and help it grow and expand and flower. It will help you to share it with others, multiplying the joy. I view religion (spirituality, really, as opposed to the institutions of religion) as encompassing all that science has to offer and a whole lot more. In my world view your "awe and wonder" are external to science and are part of your spirituality, though you may want to call it something else.

...is "comfort" a good enough reason to believe in something? To me this amounts to "believing in something because it makes you feel good" and is akin to hedonism. Life is full of suffering and doubt and one can either learn to relish it as it actually is "warts and all" or one can delude oneself.

Lack of comfort can freeze people into inaction (it invokes fear and paranoia, etc.). Sometimes it is a good enough reason. But I should expand my point to say that emotional responses to things that science cannot explain can vary as much as emotional responses to things that it can explain. When you respond irrationally by denying some "truth" that science has revealed, you delude yourself. When you respond emotionally to some "mystery" about which science has no clue, you are not deluding yourself, you are simply using the human tools available to you, rather then burying your head in the sand and "praying" for science to provide an answer.

Edited May 5, 2009 by seeksit

[andromeda]

When you respond emotionally to some "mystery" about which science has no clue, you are not deluding yourself, you are simply using the human tools available to you, rather then burying your head in the sand and "praying" for science to provide an answer.

Actually if some "mystery" would happen I wouldn't "pray" for a scientific explanation cause even though there surely is one, with the laws of nature that we are familiar with it, it just might be possible that we still can't explain what happened. I wouldn't resort to God! It just seems to me like a simple way out.

Now a completely different thing. I've seen this (in the movies, but it probably happens in real life too) that when someone is terminally ill and when all the medical treatments are exhausted, people decide to put everything into “God's hands”. Now if they believe in God, wasn't that in God's hands from the get-go?? Why did they start with the treatment if they knew that it's God's will anyway whether they'll get better or not?

Another example of “God’s work”. Someone is viciously murdered. The killer is punished. Family of the victim says “God’s will”. So God used that murderer as his tool to take that persons life. The murderer goes to jail and faces hell cause he was just a puppet in God’s hands. Now that unfortunate victim could have died by slipping and banging his had on concrete, but he didn’t. If it’s God’s will why didn’t he just “make it look like an accident”?

There’s just so many things that doesn’t make sense! I’m really baffled how you believers manage to put this Christianity puzzle together without having that puzzle crumble to smithereens.

Edited May 5, 2009 by andromeda

[Izzy]

Yes. It is. The Christians have less children.

:lol: ..You sure though?

And then there's always Deborah Draper, whose father has an entire army of God of his own.. There was a specific video I want to link to, but being at school I can't access it. Type 'Deborah, 13, Servant of God' into YouTube. Watch the entire thing, and if you cba to, watch the last thirtyish seconds of the last (sixth?) part where she's crying.

[hugemonkey]

Quoting from the Wikipedia entry on dogma:

Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.

Would you dare to question, dispute, doubt or diverge from the established consensus of science? Assuming you are not an expert, and therefore not capable of advancing the knowledge in the field, people would view you as a fool to start pontificating about new theories. No, you accept the dogma until the scientific authority figures tell you otherwise. Just like religion.

Again with the dogma. Scientific knowledge is not dogma because it welcomes doubt and dispute and is not absolute in nature. That is the entire basis of science. A non-scientists can choose to defer to a scientist about the veracity of a certain theory; because they know that the theory is derived from evidence obtained through independently verifiable experimentation that provides actual data as evidence. These "scientific authority figures" do not tell you what to believe based on nothing. They have come to their position only after the data has been verified and repeated independently. That is not the same as putting faith in something only because an authority figure says so as is the case with religious dogma.

I do concede that there have been cases where a certain Scientific theory is held on to by scientific authorities even after it has been disproven by others. I would say that this type of conservatism is a trait common of all human institutions and not one specific to Science itself. Fortunately, although there may be some lag in adopting, an incorrect theory will not persist long in the face of contrary evidence.

[unreality]

The cool thing about evolution is that is is a completely undesigned process. You don't need have a creator for it to work, just take extremely simple, replicating, chemical processes and add time and you will get the levels of complexity that you see in biological life today. Although it is undesigned it it is not random. When two individuals compete for a limited resource such as food, territory or mates; the one that is best at at competing for this resource will tend to become more numerous over time. This non-random mechanism is natural selection.

oh I know, believe me ("believe" lol )... I was merely saying that, for a theist who can't wrap their mind around things like astronomical odds, huge stretches of time, anthromorphic principle, etc (the things that contribute to the existence of life on Earth from the "primordial soup"), and wished to instead believe that life was planted there (either by a supernatural god or by an asteroid from another planet - panspermia - which just begs the question again but offsets it to another planet), that no matter HOW life as replicated molecules first arose, evolution would take it from there. I was just being happy that Romulus accepts & understands such principles and is rethinking parts of the faith (such as the literal accuracy of the bible) but keeping the science rational

The same can't be said for many creationists however

[Guest]

I think that this is more of a semantic assertion that an actual difference.

Absolutely not.

[history lesson]

National Socialism shared many attributes with religious fanaticism, but was about anything but God. As the name implies, it was a nationalist movement. Hitler believed that a nation was the culmination of a race's creative effort. He believed the "great" (or "master") races, and their countries, would naturally rise to prominence, and subjugate the "lesser" (or "slave") ones. Below even the "slave races" stood the untermench (subhumans) -- international, or "parasitic" races without a nation of their own (Jews, Romani, etc...). The Jews were hated above all because their comparative wealth and influence was seen as an insidious plan to invade and take over the world from within its existing institutions, like some sort of James Bond villain's network. Hitler thought this cowardly, preferring the "nobility" of overt extermination between nation-races. He believed it was a mistake to allow racial/cultural/ethnic diversity or integration, which could only result in "mongrel" races. Diversity of religion within a nation was, however, of no importance, nor was whether "master", "slave", and untermensch races shared or differed in their religion.

Hitler's own religious beliefs are not well understood, but it is known that he never attended mass, and repressed all religious institutions, including the Roman Catholic church into which he was born, baptized, and confirmed, and which he later abandoned. The highest ranks of the NSDAP were mostly filled by atheists or those with only nominal faith (Heinrich Himmler being the one notable exception). Religion and God are not mentioned in any Party or Fuhrer Directives, and only on rare occasions invoked in speeches, articles, and proclamations (far less frequently than in Presidential addresses, e.g.). Slavic peoples and the Romani, both mostly of Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox faith (neither of which was objectionable to the Nazi Party) were despised nearly as much as the Jews.

Does any of this sound like the behavior of a religious fanatic? If so, then why was conversion to a Christian faith not enough to keep you out of a concentration camp? Because the NSDAP preferred you didn't believe in God: all the more time and energy to worship the fuhrer and his personality cult. Why were infant children of Jews not raised by the state to be good little Nazis? Because the Final Solution was about exterminating the Jewish race, not its religion and culture. If it was Judaism that National Socialism sought to eradicate, why did non-believing and/or non-practicing Jews, as well as devout, lifelong Christians find themselves in concentration camps sporting a Star of David on their arm? Because faith was of no consequence -- only purity of race mattered.

[/history lesson]

I also think that you are failing to remember the crusades and the jihad [...]

Wrong again. They are the exception, not the rule. You cite Jihad and the Crusades. However, Alexander did not conquer Eastern Europe and Asia Minor to spread Greek religion. The Romans did not fight Carthage, Greece, Egypt, Gaul, Palestine, etc... over gods, but land and resources. Heck, they liked the Greeks and their religion. Europeans didn't spend most of the Middle Ages fighting each other over God -- they mostly had the same beliefs. Genghis Khan was noted for his tolerance of other religions, and studied their philosophies quite earnestly, when he wasn't busy conquering and pillaging their towns and cities. France didn't have one of the world's bloodiest revolutions, drawing most of Europe into decades of war, over God. The American Revolution wasn't about God. In fact, part of the motivation for both the French and American Revolutions was to get God out government. And the bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century -- two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, a series of revolutions and civil wars in Russia, the Chinese civil wars, the Great Leap Forward, Stalin's purges, the Khmer Rouge -- none of it had the remotest religious motivation. I'm not arguing that religion has never been used for violent means (uh, inquisition anyone?), but you are simply wrong to state that it has been the primary cause of violence throughout history. There are plenty of reasons to be against religions without having to make up ones that aren't true.

most people are part of an ethnicity due to a religious organization or sect.

No, it's the other way around. Most people inherit their religion from their ethnic group. Ethnicity is primarily to do with race.

In almost every country, empire, monarchy... any sort of government or society, there has been persecution of one group by another. The biggest factor that creates who is in which group? Their religion.

Uh... you don't know, for example, any black people, do you?

Holy wars may not have actually been fought to spread religion, it may have been to spread one man's empire, but the real reason is not the reason the soldiers are fighting. It is not the way that each man wielding a sword, an axe, a rifle or a bomb justifies the lives he is about to take. More often than not, if he is a religious man, he thinks that god would think it is ok because these people are heathens or heretics anyway.

You have no evidence to support that statement. Throughout history, people have joined military campaigns and killed enemy soldiers for a variety of reasons too numerous to list. Religion is only one of them.

[Guest]

Absolutely not.

[history lesson]

National Socialism shared many attributes with religious fanaticism, but was about anything but God. As the name implies, it was a nationalist movement. Hitler believed that a nation was the culmination of a race's creative effort. He believed the "great" (or "master") races, and their countries, would naturally rise to prominence, and subjugate the "lesser" (or "slave") ones. Below even the "slave races" stood the untermench (subhumans) -- international, or "parasitic" races without a nation of their own (Jews, Romani, etc...). The Jews were hated above all because their comparative wealth and influence was seen as an insidious plan to invade and take over the world from within its existing institutions, like some sort of James Bond villain's network. Hitler thought this cowardly, preferring the "nobility" of overt extermination between nation-races. He believed it was a mistake to allow racial/cultural/ethnic diversity or integration, which could only result in "mongrel" races. Diversity of religion within a nation was, however, of no importance, nor was whether "master", "slave", and untermensch races shared or differed in their religion.

Hitler's own religious beliefs are not well understood, but it is known that he never attended mass, and repressed all religious institutions, including the Roman Catholic church into which he was born, baptized, and confirmed, and which he later abandoned. The highest ranks of the NSDAP were mostly filled by atheists or those with only nominal faith (Heinrich Himmler being the one notable exception). Religion and God are not mentioned in any Party or Fuhrer Directives, and only on rare occasions invoked in speeches, articles, and proclamations (far less frequently than in Presidential addresses, e.g.). Slavic peoples and the Romani, both mostly of Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox faith (neither of which was objectionable to the Nazi Party) were despised nearly as much as the Jews.

Does any of this sound like the behavior of a religious fanatic? If so, then why was conversion to a Christian faith not enough to keep you out of a concentration camp? Because the NSDAP preferred you didn't believe in God: all the more time and energy to worship the fuhrer and his personality cult. Why were infant children of Jews not raised by the state to be good little Nazis? Because the Final Solution was about exterminating the Jewish race, not its religion and culture. If it was Judaism that National Socialism sought to eradicate, why did non-believing and/or non-practicing Jews, as well as devout, lifelong Christians find themselves in concentration camps sporting a Star of David on their arm? Because faith was of no consequence -- only purity of race mattered.

[/history lesson]

I'll give you that he Nazi party was not about religion so much as about power and racial cleansing. As a matter of fact, I gave you that in my previous post. I am fully aware that leaders have always used whatever means necessary to achieve their goals of domination. I still think that you are underestimating the influence that religion had on the people who were the tools of the Nazi party, the soldiers and the civilians who turned people in. If not directly in the name of religion, it is still a party to the fact that they have been trained their whole lives to follow blindly any dogmatic leadership that makes them part of their own ethnicity. On this point, I think we may need to agree to disagree because you are loking at it from a historical perspective while I look more along the lines of sociology and what would need to be in place for such things to happen. I also think you are overlooking the non-genocidal murders and persecutions that have been done in the name of religion or supported by a religious belief. The Pharaohs of Egypt were considered gods, as were the emperors of China. What they said was law because they were worshipped.

Sorry to truncate this, but I gotta go to dinner. I'll expand when I get the chance.

Wrong again. They are the exception, not the rule. You cite Jihad and the Crusades. However, Alexander did not conquer Eastern Europe and Asia Minor to spread Greek religion. The Romans did not fight Carthage, Greece, Egypt, Gaul, Palestine, etc... over gods, but land and resources. Heck, they liked the Greeks and their religion. Europeans didn't spend most of the Middle Ages fighting each other over God -- they mostly had the same beliefs. Genghis Khan was noted for his tolerance of other religions, and studied their philosophies quite earnestly, when he wasn't busy conquering and pillaging their towns and cities. France didn't have one of the world's bloodiest revolutions, drawing most of Europe into decades of war, over God. The American Revolution wasn't about God. In fact, part of the motivation for both the French and American Revolutions was to get God out government. And the bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century -- two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, a series of revolutions and civil wars in Russia, the Chinese civil wars, the Great Leap Forward, Stalin's purges, the Khmer Rouge -- none of it had the remotest religious motivation. I'm not arguing that religion has never been used for violent means (uh, inquisition anyone?), but you are simply wrong to state that it has been the primary cause of violence throughout history. There are plenty of reasons to be against religions without having to make up ones that aren't true.

I never said religion was the primary cause of violence, greed is and always was. Religion is the primary justification for who people choose to kill

Hit the rest when I get home

[Guest]

Yes. It is. The Christians have less children.

Technically speaking, the relationship is a class-subclass relationship.

Mormons fall in under a category of Christianity called Restorationism:

The belief that the original church fell into apostasy and was somehow restored to them.

[Guest]

Wrong again. They are the exception, not the rule. You cite Jihad and the Crusades. However, Alexander did not conquer Eastern Europe and Asia Minor to spread Greek religion. The Romans did not fight Carthage, Greece, Egypt, Gaul, Palestine, etc... over gods, but land and resources. Heck, they liked the Greeks and their religion. Europeans didn't spend most of the Middle Ages fighting each other over God -- they mostly had the same beliefs. Genghis Khan was noted for his tolerance of other religions, and studied their philosophies quite earnestly, when he wasn't busy conquering and pillaging their towns and cities. France didn't have one of the world's bloodiest revolutions, drawing most of Europe into decades of war, over God. The American Revolution wasn't about God. In fact, part of the motivation for both the French and American Revolutions was to get God out government. And the bloodiest conflicts of the twentieth century -- two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, a series of revolutions and civil wars in Russia, the Chinese civil wars, the Great Leap Forward, Stalin's purges, the Khmer Rouge -- none of it had the remotest religious motivation. I'm not arguing that religion has never been used for violent means (uh, inquisition anyone?), but you are simply wrong to state that it has been the primary cause of violence throughout history. There are plenty of reasons to be against religions without having to make up ones that aren't true.

To expand upon my earlier comment, religion was the primary justification for many a murder and far more serious maltreatments of the non-ruling religion or those subject to a "god-on-earth".

The American revolution may not have been about god, but the pilgrims originally came here so that they could practice their version of their faith free from persecution. After the war, slavery was justified by many a scripture in the bible including those that say it is ok to beat your slave to death if they survive a day or two after the beating. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of he reason black people were considered to be a lower order of human was do to the hamitic hypothesis; a theory that Africans were the descendants of the cursed son of Noah, Ham. This not only was used to justify them as servants (the bible said that they would be servants of servants) but also among latter interpretations allowed for a greater separation amongst Africans in which those further North or with more advanced technology were considered closer to Noah genealogically which allowed one to be ranked among others. The genocide in Rwanda was justified in this way with the Tutsi being, in God's eyes, better than the Hutu. This was as recent as 1994. For many years people were imprisoned, enslaved, tortured and killed because they were considered less human than their captors or even, as in the case of the inquisition, just because they might not believe in the same things.

On the same note of subjugation, have you ever seen a burka? I wonder how a fundamentalist Muslim, or even Pentecostal, Amish, or Mennonite man would treat his wife and female children if the bible did not say that the woman should be beneath the man.

I guess my point is that although wars may have been fought for one reason or another and genocides may have had nothing to do with religion, people are killed, beaten and mistreated on a daily basis either as a direct result or more often due to sentiments encouraged by their religion. If the religion did not exist, if religion in general did not exist, murder would have a lot fewer excuses.

No, it's the other way around. Most people inherit their religion from their ethnic group. Ethnicity is primarily to do with race.

Which came first, the chicken or the text that calls for sacrificing it? Sorry, rhetorical question. You say that people inherit their religion from their ethnic group, I say that their ethnic group is cohesive due to a shared set of beliefs and physical characteristics. This is especially true in the big 3 religions where 2 people from the same town and sometimes even the same extended family can have a bitter hatred for the other due to one or the other's acceptance of a small detail within the religion. Every schism in the history of the church has had to start somewhere, and in those points of origin the difference was purely religious. As such, entire cultures separated from there. Christians are a perfect example of this, did you know Jesus was a Jew?!? In the history of the world imperialism and large scale military action have made up a relatively small percentage of the encounters between those of different religions and it is a rare circumstance that two religious groups, even extremely similar ones, have ever co-existed peacefully without a whole lot of time to blend.

Uh... you don't know, for example, any black people, do you?

I am not sure where you were going with this, but you are relatively correct. Caucasians make up a very large percentage of my hometown where I was born, raised and still live. The next ethnic group is Hispanic, then Hmong, then Black. Within my town there is a lot more animosity between Catholics and Protestants and within Protestant groups than between any races.

You have no evidence to support that statement. Throughout history, people have joined military campaigns and killed enemy soldiers for a variety of reasons too numerous to list. Religion is only one of them.

You got me there, that one was pretty off the hip. I still stand by it though based on the same logic used earlier: even if religion isn't their conscious reason, they were still raised with inherent elitism and fear/hatred of those different that they can justify themselves morally using the same religion that tells them not to kill.

[Guest]

I'd like to expand a little on what kawnsentrait is saying there. I think regardless of the reason for conflict, stated or otherwise, religion contributes significantly to humankind's potential to engage in conflict. The mindset of many religions is to believe in a source of authority. Not just the texts of the religion but also the priests and other proponents of the religion are given a position of unchallenged authority, and rulers (or at a lower level, military commanders) who associate themselves with the religion are considered authoritative by association. It's one of the basic reasons why religion has historically been encouraged by states. It makes people obey. The basic premise is "we both serve the same God, who has decreed that I be in a position of authority over you, therefore if you do not obey me you defy God".

Also it provides a rationalisation of why dying for your country (or other group) might make sense. God supports your cause (of course!) so you are fighting for God's will and if you die you will go to heaven for it. Plus the afterlife is what it's all about, this life is just a stopover so if you lose your life or take someone else's it's no big deal.

Finally it encourages faith! In other words, to suspend independent thought, and rather fall back on a state of denial when your accepted world view starts looking a little bit doubtful. That's very important when you're about to go into battle and you start thinking "Wait a minute, aren't I about to get killed? Isn't this just madness?". That's when you've got to have faith. Faith in your leaders. Faith that what you are doing is right. Faith that God would not steer you wrong.

EDIT: I had a feeling something was missing there, and it was. The most important part: Abdication of personal moral responsibility!

If I think "I will dedicate myself to do God's will, and I have faith that God will direct me on the right path", I must therefore conclude that whatever path I am steered onto is God's will, even if it's the path to war. So even if I am personally horrified at the immorality of my own actions, I must accept that they are the right thing to do because they are God's will. I may not understand why creating death and destruction is the right thing to do, but I must trust that it is part of God's Mysterious Plan, and overlook my personal moral judgements in favour of my faith.

[Guest]

thank you octopuppy, you said what I was too tired to clearly portray.

[Guest]

You cite the crusades, yet it was only a selfish cause to gain wealth and establish dominance. Religions are only an excuse, and cannot be blamed. And the most animosity in my school is racial and Atheism vs. Christianity. The atheists are especially touchy, and react with suspicion to any mention of their belief. The Mormons always insist they're Christians (they're just a cult, and not a denomination), and most Muslims won't speak of Christianity. And another point, God has never called us to do something immoral, unlest you mean jihaadist Muslims. Get the facts right. You have no right to judge a religion based on a few bad individuals.

[Guest]

I'll give you that he Nazi party was not about religion so much as about power and racial cleansing. As a matter of fact, I gave you that in my previous post.

Uh... no. You said:

making the claim that something is ethnically motivated and not religiously is truly a semantic difference only "

I am fully aware that leaders have always used whatever means necessary to achieve their goals of domination. I still think that you are underestimating the influence that religion had on the people who were the tools of the Nazi party, the soldiers and the civilians who turned people in. If not directly in the name of religion, it is still a party to the fact that they have been trained their whole lives to follow blindly any dogmatic leadership that makes them part of their own ethnicity.

Unfounded assertion. You assume that people turned in their neighbors after considering, consciously or not, how they would square it with God, if they even believed in one. This is sheer speculation.

On this point, I think we may need to agree to disagree because you are loking at it from a historical perspective while I look more along the lines of sociology and what would need to be in place for such things to happen.

You should consider reading Richard Evans' "The Coming of the Third Reich". It is a very readable and comprehensive account of just that.

I also think you are overlooking the non-genocidal murders and persecutions that have been done in the name of religion or supported by a religious belief. The Pharaohs of Egypt were considered gods, as were the emperors of China. What they said was law because they were worshipped.

What they said was law because they were in command of lots of guys with pointy objects, which they would have no need for if the majority of people truly believed in their divinity.

I never said religion was the primary cause of violence, greed is and always was. Religion is the primary justification for who people choose to kill

What you said was:

More people have been killed in the name of gad (sic) than for anything else ever [...]

...which sounds a lot like "more people have been killed because of religion than for any other reason" and not very much like "more people have rationalized killing somebody else for a reason that may or may not be related to the faith of the deceased by invoking reasoning based on religious texts." Besides, whether it is the "primary justification" or the explicit cause, both are equally unproven.

[Guest]

lavery was justified by many a scripture in the bible including those that say it is ok to beat your slave to death if they survive a day or two after the beating. (the Curse of Ham, Rwanda, genocide, etc...)

Secular law can be perverted to justify hatred just as easily as scripture. I hate to pick on the Germans, but there you have the perfect example. Either way, the constitution or religion did not create the desire for the violent act. Seeksit made an similar argument against science (which we have used to invent increasingly destructive weapons) in another thread, which I attacked with the same zeal. Whether or not I agree that religion benefits society is beside the point. It is wrong to blame the axe for chopping down the tree.

On the same note of subjugation, have you ever seen a burka? I wonder how a fundamentalist Muslim, or even Pentecostal, Amish, or Mennonite man would treat his wife and female children if the bible did not say that the woman should be beneath the man.

I guess my point is that although wars may have been fought for one reason or another and genocides may have had nothing to do with religion, people are killed, beaten and mistreated on a daily basis either as a direct result or more often due to sentiments encouraged by their religion. If the religion did not exist, if religion in general did not exist, murder would have a lot fewer excuses.

You make the (fallacious) assumption that without religion, there would be a reduction in violence, because there would be one fewer excuse (out of hundreds, perhaps thousands) for it. Even if, as you say (based on nothing more than anecdote and postulation) it is the prevailing excuse, it is naive to think that people would not find other reasons to hate each other and other ways to rationalize killing each other. Unfortunately, I believe there would still be violence against women. It is common for animals to bully those who are smaller and weaker than they are. In most species of mammals, the males are generally bigger and stronger than the females, and have dominated them by force since long before religion existed. I also, unfortunately, believe there would still be other forms of hatred. There is a tendency for people to fear those who are different, and single them out for abuse.

Which came first, the chicken or the text that calls for sacrificing it? Sorry, rhetorical question. You say that people inherit their religion from their ethnic group, I say that their ethnic group is cohesive due to a shared set of beliefs and physical characteristics. This is especially true in the big 3 religions where 2 people from the same town and sometimes even the same extended family can have a bitter hatred for the other due to one or the other's acceptance of a small detail within the religion. Every schism in the history of the church has had to start somewhere, and in those points of origin the difference was purely religious. As such, entire cultures separated from there. Christians are a perfect example of this, did you know Jesus was a Jew?!? In the history of the world imperialism and large scale military action have made up a relatively small percentage of the encounters between those of different religions and it is a rare circumstance that two religious groups, even extremely similar ones, have ever co-existed peacefully without a whole lot of time to blend.

There are religions that span ethnic groups, and ethnic groups that have more than one religion. There is a correlation between the two, but it is not a one-to-one causal relationship.

I am not sure where you were going with this, but you are relatively correct.

It was just an example of another excuse people have found to hate each other, that does not involve them having different religious beliefs.

I still stand by it though based on the same logic used earlier: even if religion isn't their conscious reason, they were still raised with inherent elitism and fear/hatred of those different that they can justify themselves morally using the same religion that tells them not to kill.

First of all, that's not logic, but speculation. You assume (there's that word again) that soldiers have, for the most part throughout history, justified their acts by appealing (consciously or not) to religious code or authority. This implies two things: first, that there is a "thou shalt not kill" commandment they have broken or are about to break, and second, that they would not fight if an exception to the commandment were not provided for them. The former is simply not true of all religious beliefs. The latter cannot be proven, but seems very unlikely to me. Based on your comments however, I'm fairly certain that you have no idea what the thought process of a soldier is in combat.

Finally, if (as you agreed was the majority of the time) the war started because of something other than religion, would soldiers not still be in the same place with or without a religious belief, still struggling with the same (assumed) moral dilemma? The fact that two (or more) states are at war is a pretty good indication that they have plenty of reasons to hate each other. If they had no religious belief, they would also have no need for divine rationalization.