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Religion is not evil

tsig said:
Judging from your post above you do consider atheism a belief system yet somehow you wish to claim you don't.
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Since the post you quoted quite explicitly doesn't say any such thing, I'll leave you to it.
 
westprog said:
I suppose that if AWP's OP didn't have any effect, then I doubt whether anything I say would make a difference.

No, I wasn't persuaded by the assorted "religion is evil" posts, because of the extraordinary lengths people have gone to to avoid addressing AWP's points, and later, mine.

For example, Leumas posted a video which refers to scientology, and insists that this must necessarily stand as a rebuke to every possible religious impulse. This is clearly an example of a gross generalisation - and yet he refuses to even accept Marxism as an example of atheism in particular. This isn't remotely persuasive. I'm sure that he will find people to agree with him who agreed with him before the discussion started.
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I was simply asking if any of the posts swayed ya, not just one poster, but don't worry about replying cause i can clearly see you trying to post like you are in a class above everyone else, take a moment to come back out of the clouds and down to earth, look around at what religion is used for and ask your self ? do i really want too be part of this.
 
RedRatSnake said:
I was simply asking if any of the posts swayed ya, not just one poster, but don't worry about replying cause i can clearly see you trying to post like you are in a class above everyone else,
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I'm trying to express a simple point - that it makes no sense to consider whether religion has an evil effect without considering how society develops in the absence of religion. So, no, I haven't been convinced by anecdotes about the evil effects of religion that refuse to take account of societies which have rejected religion entirely. I find myself in the odd position of hypothesising the arguments which might be used to counteract this, as nobody else is bothering to come up with anything.

It simply doesn't make sense to treat religion in isolation without considering the possible variety of effects of a society which abolishes or suppresses religion.

take a moment to come back out of the clouds and down to earth, look around at what religion is used for and ask your self ? do i really want too be part of this.
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If by "a part of this" you mean, part of a world where religion is significant to vast numbers of people - well, there is no choice. That is the world we live in. If you want to know what the world would be like if we all made an effort to just get rid of - we've examples of that as well.
 
westprog said:
Would you ever specify a recipe according to what it leaves out?

I think that it's at least valid to taste your soup to see if it tastes better with or without salt - and just how much is best. I don't think it's enough to throw in a cupful of salt, taste, and say "salt is bad - leave it out".
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You could specify a recipe according to what it leaves out, if it's a dish that actually exists.

Again, this goes back to the crux ... the believer thinks nonspaghetti exists. It doesn't exist. It doesn't lack any ingredient, it lacks EVERY ingredient because it's nonexistent. No one recognizes something that isn't there. It's not fat free, or low on sodium ... it isn't anything whatsoever. I think the believer struggles with wrapping their mind around the idea that atheism is not a religion, because they are looking at nonexistent nonspaghetti as though it were something that were real.
 
westprog said:
Would you ever specify a recipe according to what it leaves out?

I think that it's at least valid to taste your soup to see if it tastes better with or without salt - and just how much is best. I don't think it's enough to throw in a cupful of salt, taste, and say "salt is bad - leave it out".
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And if someone says 'I never use salt in my recipes because salt is bad, I only use freshly harvested human organs' then that is useful comparison to the person who says 'I always use salt, because it tastes good' ?

We then have to use harvesting human organs as the example of what happens when people don't use salt?
 
westprog said:
I'm trying to express a simple point - that it makes no sense to consider whether religion has an evil effect without considering how society develops in the absence of religion. So, no, I haven't been convinced by anecdotes about the evil effects of religion that refuse to take account of societies which have rejected religion entirely. I find myself in the odd position of hypothesising the arguments which might be used to counteract this, as nobody else is bothering to come up with anything.

It simply doesn't make sense to treat religion in isolation without considering the possible variety of effects of a society which abolishes or suppresses religion.

If by "a part of this" you mean, part of a world where religion is significant to vast numbers of people - well, there is no choice. That is the world we live in. If you want to know what the world would be like if we all made an effort to just get rid of - we've examples of that as well.
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First of all, I haven't seen the argument made in this thread that we should abolish religion forcefully or otherwise. You are railing against an argument that hasn't been made.

You fail to take on board any difference between a belief system that contains atheism and one that is religion.

And its all irrelevant to the OP. If your argument is that religion is evil but forcefully trying to abolish religion and impose a totalitarian regime based on somewhat dodgy economic principles is worse then you are derailing the thread.

If your argument is that religion is not evil because it stops people imposing a totalitarian regime based on somewhat dodgy economic principles then its a poor one because we have ample evidence that this is NOT typically what happens as countries become more secular and in fact only occurs when atheism is combined with specific other ideologies that the vast majority of atheists outside of these specific examples do not support.

Your argument is disingenuous and if you are going to play this game of shoehorning Communism in to the equation then we'll have to play fair and put on the other side of the scale the Holocaust - after all without religion it wouldn't have happened - pretty much every war that has ever happened -after all they were pretty much all fought by people who follow a religion - and every child who has ever starved in Africa - after all, this is happening in countries which are majority religious.
 
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westprog said:
Further to my other point - is it claimed that Poland would have been better off in 1979 if it had been staunchly atheist? How would that have affected history?
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No, but now that you ask, I think they would be, yes. At least the catholic church wouldn't be able to influence their laws (regarding abortion etc.). :mad: (Btw, I lived in East Germany (after reunification) for a couple of years and the level of not being bothered with bronzeage myths was refreshing. :D )


I also don't think communistic systems oppose religions because they are atheistic, on the contrary, they oppose them because they are competition. Only in certain countries, where it's not working due to opposition from the population, they leave it be or even "encourage" it like in Poland with the visit of the pope. Imagine the Dalai Lama would visit Tibet, they certainly would not have had him preach and certainly not let him leave again.
Anyway, communistic systems might not have 'proper' gods, but they do have human gods, the leaders of the party and/or the 'founding fathers' i.e Marx, Lenin, Mao. At least one commie country has (already) made a step beyond that and elevated its leaders to real gods, North-Korea.

There are some scenes regarding that in the following docus:

Welcome to North Korea
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3742145385913859804

North Korea Nuclear Documentary
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3787046457101273554
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
First of all, I haven't seen the argument made in this thread that we should abolish religion forcefully or otherwise. You are railing against an argument that hasn't been made.
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This seems to be an ungoing problem for people who oppose religion. The idea that any opposition of religion means you want jackbooted thugs to kick the doors of churches in and drag everyone inside off to be reeducated.

I have no intention of trying to enforce some kind of thought crime. I am not trying to control what people think.

What I am trying to do is hold religion to the same legal, moral, and intellectual standards as other ideas. I want to remove the velvet rope from around religion, remove the social constructs that make it "rude" to question religion to the same degree as other ideas. I want "I believe X to be true" to be held to the same standards as "I think X to be true."

If my neighbor thinks the Earth is only 5,000 years old I don't want him arrested. What I want is for people to stop making excuses for him.
 
ixolite said:
No, but now that you ask, I think they (Btw, I lived in East Germany (after reunification) for a couple of years and the level of not being bothered with bronzeage myths was refreshing. :D )
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In 1991 I got to know, and to become good friends with, a Russian family. Tamara had an East German school friend and on one of my visits to stay with Tamara, I met her at her friend's house in Eisenach. Both these families and their friends (in Eisenach and St Petersburg where Tamaralived) were kind, well-adjusted, very well educated people with absolutely no desire to re-adopt any religious belief; on the contrary for them it would have been a backward step. They enjoyed their increasing - real, as opposed to censored - contact with western Europe. I do not know the politics of communism, but the non-religious side seems pretty sensible to me. Great churches etc were not destroyed.
 
Egg said:
westprog did carefully define his terms and at no point has suggested that atheism is a belief system. When he talks about an atheist or atheistic belief system, he's referring to a belief system that includes no god beliefs or in some cases, more specifically, the belief in no gods.

It might make sense to argue that you don't like the term for that definition for some reason or possibly to ask for clarification on what actually comprises a "belief system" and do we all have one? But to try to suggest he's saying something that he isn't is either a misunderstanding or a deliberate attempt at misrepresentation.
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This IS a rramjet thread!

I know you like semantics, Egg, but I find you far too credulous for your own good. Consider westprog's arguments; weigh the odds that there actually is a point somewhere under the semantics with the odds that he's just redefining everything continually so he can object to our deliberate misunderstanding in lieu of making any actual argument.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
This IS a rramjet thread!

I know you like semantics, Egg, but I find you far too credulous for your own good. Consider westprog's arguments; weigh the odds that there actually is a point somewhere under the semantics with the odds that he's just redefining everything continually so he can object to our deliberate misunderstanding in lieu of making any actual argument.
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Thanks, glad it wasn't just me. I feel like I've been swimming in semantic syrup.

Categorizing atheism as a 'faith' has always seemed disingenuous to me, kinda like the schoolyard taunt "I might be one but so are you".
 
westprog said:
I'm trying to express a simple point - that it makes no sense to consider whether religion has an evil effect without considering how society develops in the absence of religion. So, no, I haven't been convinced by anecdotes about the evil effects of religion that refuse to take account of societies which have rejected religion entirely. I find myself in the odd position of hypothesising the arguments which might be used to counteract this, as nobody else is bothering to come up with anything.

It simply doesn't make sense to treat religion in isolation without considering the possible variety of effects of a society which abolishes or suppresses religion.



If by "a part of this" you mean, part of a world where religion is significant to vast numbers of people - well, there is no choice. That is the world we live in. If you want to know what the world would be like if we all made an effort to just get rid of - we've examples of that as well.
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The evil in religion is self evident: god, if he exists is a complete bastard

Let me give you a little of my history.
I got divorced.
My mother died.
My company went into liquidation. I am now unemployed, and possibly about to emigrate.
I contracted TB, and was in and out of hospital for 2 years.
I suffered DVT and two pulmonary embollisms, 5 days in ICU.
I found my father in a heap on the floor in his kitchen, after which he had to be placed in a nursing home.

All of this in the space of the last three years.

And you religious nuts want to claim all of this is my fault because I am a sinner?

Go shove it where the sun don't shine.



There is no munifecent god, and even if there were, clearly, he gives not a [bovine fecal movement] about you or I.
 
Arcade22 said:
There's nothing honorable about lying, misleading people in order to make them feel better. There is no afterlife. There are no gods or angels to care for you. The only mature thing to do is to accept that rather than to dream up a false fantasy world.

This movie doesn't end the way we want all the time. What pitiful individual would, in the face of rationality and everything the world has shown them, continuously deny reality in favor of delusion? Oh - The Christian. The Muslim. The Jew.

The poor, uneducated and botched individuals who eke out a pathetic existence with nothing but poverty and personal failing are naturally i need of something to help them forget their squalid lives and to go somewhere free from pain and hurt, mammals as they are. Some choose the relaxing and enveloping bubble of painlessness that heroin offers, others the false promise of a perfect god given afterlife.

Which is more lamentable?

There's no need to vainly embellish religion. Religions corrupt the minds of their believers and nothing, NOTHING will make that acceptable in any way. Not charity. Not justice. Not morality. Nothing.
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If a 5 year old asks to see how babies are made do we show them internet porn? After all, isn't honesty clearly more important here than say sparing someone who couldn't handle or understand the truth?

In this example, the alternative of flooding someone with truth they can't handle would be abusive in fact.

It is equally immoral to lie to a pubescent kid about how risky condoms are just to promote religious abstinence.


The heroin metaphor applies to a cult or the extremely dogmatic. There are also religious people that can be more of a beer and movie where some escapism won't kill or harm anyone.

To think of religion in binary where it is either pure good or pure evil is a simple infantile mentality of looking at the world. One who sees religion as such are just as deluded as the religious for having such discontinuous thinking and not being able to see religion across the vast spectrum of human influence.
 
Belz... said:
And it would take only a few seconds. I'd like to see it too, in fact.
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Go do it, nobody's stopping you. Since Tsig can read a post where I say that atheism is not a belief system, and refute it by saying "No! atheism is not a belief system!" I have no interest in going back over what I've already said quite clearly. Last Of The Fraggles seems to have come up with some actual points, which I will address.
 
Lamuella said:
Not all Marxists agreed with him on this. Ernst Bloch, to pick one example, saw no contradiction between christianity and marxism.
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That's one reason why Marx disassociated himself from many of the people who called themselves Marxists.

There might be people who call themselves Marxists, who nevertheless disassociate themselves with the philosophical basis of what Marx thought, and who differ in this sense from other people who call themselves Marxists, and who are running or have run a number of countries around the world. In that case, I don't include them in the category of people who have an atheistic belief system.

I certainly don't accept Marx's philosophy myself. It so happens that many people do, and they've had a huge influence on the 20th century. It's my belief that if Marxism had followed the path of Bloch (or other heretic Marxists) rather than Marx and Lenin, it might have worked out better for everyone.
 
ixolite said:
I also don't think communistic systems oppose religions because they are atheistic, on the contrary, they oppose them because they are competition.
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Well, that might well be why they are atheistic.

The question then becomes - in the context where, as in Poland, religion is the focus of opposition to an oppressive regime, should it still be considered evil? Would the Poles have been better off had religion had no significant presence (as in other communist countries which sat quietly until the Poles had kicked things off)?

Of course, there's the example of East Germany and East Berlin, where the dissidents were inspired more by nationalism. Nothing to worry about with German nationalism!
 
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