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Legitimacy of believing

^Hmmm interesting reply. I kind of agree that you can't blame all that happened during the Crusades on Christianity alone. Just like its ridiculous to claim that Stalin killed millions of people because of Atheism alone. But I do believe that Catholicism does bear some responsibility for inciting religious war.

But I think your example of the Salem Witch Trials and the Inquisition were spot on. Death should never be handed out by State or religious authority.
 
freddy47 said:
He didn't kill people because they wouldn't "convert" to atheism. That is simply another distortion of the historical record. If you have read anything about Stalin you would know that Stalin was a deeply distrustful and paranoid individual. Most of the people he killed in his purges were hardcore communists and therefore also atheists so again your argument falls flat on its face.

For example the first major purge carried out by the Bolsheviks was in 1921 where 220,000 FELLOW communists were killed. The major criteria for this first purge was social origin not religious beliefs. When Stalin took over the criteria for purging remained pretty much the same. Except now he added those he didn't trust.

There is absolutely no evidence that Stalin chose who to kill based on religious beliefs alone, none whatsoever and to claim otherwise is dishonest. His mass killing were purely political in nature not motivated by atheism.
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Your right. They killed 100 million people, not just the religious.
 
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CoffeeDrinker said:
Salem Witch Trials and the Inquisition where it's clearly the edicts of a few old perverts working within a specific framework.
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The Inquisition lasted 400 years and less than 2000 people were killed. 19 people died in the Salem Witch Trials.

Horrible crimes? Absolutely. World historical mass murdering genocidal crimes? No. Living according to the teachings and spirit of Jesus? No.
 
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Your right. They killed 100 million people, not just the religious.
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Yes Stalin killed millions but did atheism have anything to do with it? No. It had as much to do with it as Christianity did. You have not given a single shred of evidence that Stalin killed for or because of atheism. Just that because he was an atheist he therefore killed to further some atheist agenda which is completely untrue and not in keeping with what actually happened.

The Inquisition lasted 400 years and less than 2000 people were killed. 19 people died in the Salem Witch Trials.

Horrible crimes? Absolutely. World historical mass murdering genocidal crimes? No. Living according to the teachings and spirit of Jesus? No.
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So its come down to this then? Weighing which ideology has killed more people? You still have yet to prove that anybody has ever killed in the name of atheism. So if this is indeed the argument you are putting forth then the score is at least 2019 people killed in the name of Christianity. People killed in the name of atheism? Zero.
 
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^this argument began with the assertion that religion caused the deaths of millions. it seems that bullshit has been put in its place.
 
^We should just chalk up Columbine for the Atheists side of things. What's that, like 13 or so?

I have no idea what Portillo is talking about any more, you seemed to have missed my point, which was "when religion goes wrong..." I specifically picked those examples because they are impossible to distance from their respective religions. I called the men who were leading the charge in those circumstances "old perverts" for perverting spiritual teachings, but they were still, nonetheless, the pinnacle of those hierarchies, making their entire institutions culpable. I never said they are a reason you should feel a certain way, I'm saying they are examples of why these man-made structures should never be considered infallible and deal out the ultimate punishment, which undoubtedly has implications as to their fundamental legitimacy, but I'll leave that debate for another time. Its belief in organized religion which seems to be vastly eroded in western societies these days, though vestigial pockets of fundamentalism still abide.
 
We should just chalk up Columbine for the Atheists side of things. What's that, like 13 or so?
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lol ok score is now 2019 Christians 13 or so for atheism. I'll ignore the massacres that Christian armies committed during the Crusades for now. :)

I have no idea what Portillo is talking about any more, you seemed to have missed my point, which was "when religion goes wrong..." I specifically picked those examples because they are impossible to distance from their respective religions. I called the men who were leading the charge in those circumstances "old perverts" for perverting spiritual teachings, but they were still, nonetheless, the pinnacle of those hierarchies, making their entire institutions culpable. I never said they are a reason you should feel a certain way, I'm saying they are examples of why these man-made structures should never be considered infallible and deal out the ultimate punishment, which undoubtedly has implications as to their fundamental legitimacy,
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Very well put coffedrinker. Couldn't have said it better myself and I tried lol.

this argument began with the assertion that religion caused the deaths of millions. it seems that bullshit has been put in its place.
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I was not the one who asserted this just to be clear. I do believe religion has caused deaths but so have nations and other things. I agree with Coffedrinker that whatever people believe they will still find reasons to kill each other. Its just that I don't think anybody has ever killed in the name of atheism which is ludicrous to even suggest.
 
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Seriously, those random school shooter types tend to be athiestic, and there is evidence that one of the Columbine shooters specifically targeted one girl because she said that she believed in God. Though I suppose we could make an agreement that you can't count people who haven't completed puberty yet because who hasn't wanted to shoot up a school at one point or another?
 
Seriously, those random school shooter types tend to be athiestic, and there is evidence that one of the Columbine shooters specifically targeted one girl because she said that she believed in God.
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Yeah I read about that. But to be honest I think the guy would have shot her regardless of how she answered as they were just REALLY pissed off at everyone at the school. I think the main thing was that they were being bullied or whatever and they were on meds that fucked with their heads. You could just as easily put all the blame on violent video games and rated R films as you can blame it on atheism (which for the record I think is bullshit. If someone is inclined to shoot people I doubt a video game or film made much of a difference.) On that subject I once wrote an article for my high school paper about violent video games causing violence. At the end I wrote that I have killed countless enemies in countless ways in video games and never once have I had the desire to actually carry out a murder. I concluded that evil comes from within not from without.

Though I suppose we could make an agreement that you can't count people who haven't completed puberty yet because who hasn't wanted to shoot up a school at one point or another?
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There is violent imagination and then there is violent fantasy. I have on more than one occasion in high school imagined shooting a bully that picked on me but I have never fantasized about it. Fantasizing can often (not always) lead to actually carrying out the act while imagining it is different IMO. For example I never once while imagining shooting a bully actually go out and buy a gun and shoot at targets pretending it was the bully I was shooting. The columbine shooters took that extra step and actually stockpiled ammunition in furtherance of their fantasy and then carried it out according to how they fantasized it. Hope that made some sense.
 
i don't think religion per se, has ever caused a war.

the cause of war is a ruling elite.

how they convince people to fight is another thing entirely. people get killed in the name of some guy maintiaining the status quo/getting a bit more land/whatever, but its easier to make them fight if they think its in gods name. again, the witch trials etc, have already been stated to be total perversions of religion, just members of the elite doing their whim, jusityfing it however they please.
 
^I partially agree with that.

For example I think the crusades was caused by a mixture of religion AND the ruling elite as well as the political climate of the time. You have to admit however that Pope Urban II would have had a much harder time convincing people to take up the cross if there was no religious reason to retake Jerusalem in the first place. In fact I highly doubt that anybody would have been fervent enough to take up arms against the Muslims if they didn't see it as a violation of their holy land.

But for the most part yes religion plays more of a role of convincing people to fight then actually causing the conflict (in most cases anyway).

However I must ask do you think that Atheism has ever caused war or genocide?
 
If the question is what's the legitimacy in believing in these things, then it's to give a person a feeling of strength in themselves, and confidence, and many other positive mental effects that can allow people to accomplish things they wouldn't normally be able to accomplish. That's about half the reason I believe in a higher power, but no one religion yet.
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its not a legitamate reason to believe something that is not true just because it make you feel stronger or happier. it would make me happy to believe i have won the lottery but that doesnt make it true.

The ohter half would be that coincidence is hardly able to explain everything that happens, and that it's a very logical thing to have a higher power. In that way I don't really have faith because of my reliance on logic, which is probably why I still think like an atheist even though I don't like athiests.
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your logic here is flawed because it is an argument from ignorance. what you are basically saying is 'i cant understand how the universe came into being and i dont have and explanation, therefore a higher power (god) must exist'.

also your 'higher power' explanation immediately falls flat because it immediately poses a new question - what created the higher power? was the higher power created by another higher power and that higher power created by another higher power and so on. or was the first higher power in existence for eternity?
 
freddy47 said:
For example I think the crusades was caused by a mixture of religion AND the ruling elite as well as the political climate of the time. You have to admit however that Pope Urban II would have had a much harder time convincing people to take up the cross if there was no religious reason to retake Jerusalem in the first place. In fact I highly doubt that anybody would have been fervent enough to take up arms against the Muslims if they didn't see it as a violation of their holy land.

But for the most part yes religion plays more of a role of convincing people to fight then actually causing the conflict (in most cases anyway).

However I must ask do you think that Atheism has ever caused war or genocide?
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the holy land is made holy by religion, yes, but the decision to take it back is entirely a human one. you're right that without such a pretext it would have been harder to make people fight muslims, but it wouldn't have been impossible. you could just say any old bollocks, like whatever it is they say to people to make them fight in wars not justified by religion.

pedantically, atheism, like religion, isn't the sort of thing that can cause war. an atheistic elite, like a religious elite, is as free as they like to choose any pretext to get people to slay each other.

jihad is a tough one. it can be interpreted as the struggle to eliminate evil from yourself, in which case it doesn't advocate war, but it can legitimately be interpreted as advocating war. though i'd be happy to bet that any actual war started, and called jihad, is caused by a ruling elite intending to further their own agenda, they must be soooo pleased they get such a clear and easy religious pretext to hide behind whilst committing atrocities.
 
can i also point out that almost all of the leaders of the ussr, from lenin to gorbachev, except for malenkov, were atheist or non-religious but stalin was the only one who murdered millions of people.

the argument stalin was an atheist and was an immoral murder, therefore atheists are immoral murderers doesnt make any logic sense. its like saying my friends car is fast and blue. my car is blue and therefore must also be fast. do you see my point?

and anyway, even if being religious such as a christian, did make you a more moral person (which it doesnt), it still wouldnt be a justification for believing it because it is not based on any evidence or reason.
 
its not a legitamate reason to believe something that is not true just because it make you feel stronger or happier. it would make me happy to believe i have won the lottery but that doesnt make it true.
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Well being that you can empirically prove if you did or did not win the lottery I'd say this argument is flawed. The whole point of believing in God is believing in something that is not empirically provable, that is why they need faith in order to believe.
 
the holy land is made holy by religion, yes, but the decision to take it back is entirely a human one. you're right that without such a pretext it would have been harder to make people fight muslims, but it wouldn't have been impossible. you could just say any old bollocks, like whatever it is they say to people to make them fight in wars not justified by religion.
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Here is where I disagree with you. For the most part the Crusades were a voluntary affair in that a man whether he peasant or noble did not have to join. What would have convinced a French serf to fight thousands of miles from home against an enemy that posed no threat if not religion? Granted a knight could have forced the serf to fight but again most people who took up the cross did so voluntarily. It took the promise of heaven and forgiveness of all your sins to convince a great deal of peasants to join in the fight.
 
they did so voluntarily, but at the encouragement of a ruling elite.

had religious people been left to their own devices, without the pope stepping in, i doubt the crusades would have been fought.

the point is, to start a war, you need someone in power to mobilise people. this decision to mobilise an army is the cause of any war, not the pretexts used to make people fight it.
 
Lazyscience said:
your logic here is flawed because it is an argument from ignorance. what you are basically saying is 'i cant understand how the universe came into being and i dont have and explanation, therefore a higher power (god) must exist'.
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Its about keeping an open mind. If we are like ants in an ant farm, how do we know that there isnt something out there? A supercomputer, a supreme being, an architect, aliens. Insisting that nothing outside of nature can possibly exist is close minded.
 
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