A discourse on Atheism (not a religious debate)

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Originally Posted by Climacus

But, Darcy, competing religious claims are sometimes contraries and sometimes contradictories, how then can the evidence for each be equal? You're not a dialetheist are you?

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There occurs no evidence for any of them. So the evidence is all equal, i.e., nil.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

I'm assuming you've accepted this claim is wrong given the historical examples provided demonstrates people in positions of power can easily convince people to kill each other and themselves without religion (including innocents).

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Um, no. The key phrase in the part of my post that you quoted was "more difficult." If people IN THIS SITUATION weren't convinced that they would be treated like gods in the afterlife do you really think they would have been as eager to bomb school children and kill themselves in the process? I doubt it. Also, you used an example from 1795 which no one cares about except for in an historical context. I'm talking about TODAY. Religious fanaticism is providing a lot of fuel for this mess, and if you don't believe that then you should probably watch the news more often. I could give you a stat that I came across the other day which states how many Christians have been murdered in Egypt since the 80's, but I have to find it. It was quite high. It's not just the taliban either, there are a lot of people who are causing problems in the middle east because they hold their religious organization way too close. We get them on litnet sometimes, "if you deny that Muhammad is the true prophet, blah blah blah." You must have come across a few, it's creepy.

I also assert that if people didn't thump their bible so hard, they might actually think about other people before condemning homosexuals to hell and denying them their legal human rights on the grounds of "it's what God wants."

Also, if the Catholic church wasn't literally handed so much power and cash, do you think that there would be as many people currently dying of AIDS in Africa? Do you think that when it was exposed in 2005 that the current pope knowingly advocated the coverup of sexual abuse scandals in Texas he would have still been able to obtain immunity from prosecution on the grounds that he's head of state of the Holy See? People still throw their money and support at the catholic church, even though it's been irrefutably proven that the leaders knowlingly hid evidence of child molestation. Seriously, the fact that they STILL have followers is a testiment to the fact that people hold their religious organization too closely. If the heads of the organization are corrupt, change organizations. There's nothing sacred about a group that would come face to face with someone raping kids and then saying "we'd better not let this get out, it might hurt our image." I understand the value of spirituality, and I'll admit, I have some doubts about materialism. The organization itself though? They're not holy, they're just normal people who have too much power.

My favorite solution to decreasing the ferver with which people defend their religious organization is that we should make fun of it, and we should be allowed to make fun of it. This latter point is mostly regarding Islam since we're already allowed to mock Christianity (which is good), although the catholic church did once press for an Itallian comedian to be thrown in prison for five years for insulting the pope. You can't find a network that would so much as show an image of Muhammad, let alone allow their writers to make fun of him, because they're (understandably) afraid that they'll be bombed. I think that we should push for the ability to make light of Muhammad, and I guess we could start by doing so on the internet (because you can't bomb the internet). I've always thought that comedy has power in society, you can trace the affects of various comedic trends. *shrug* I was still reading cartoon strips from the French Revolution in highschool. Comedy affects public opinion, and it really plays a role in preventing people from taking something too much to heart, which is what I'm saying is a big problem right now in regards to people's relationship with their church.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

Um, no. The key phrase in the part of my post that you quoted was "more difficult." If people IN THIS SITUATION weren't convinced that they would be treated like gods in the afterlife do you really think they would have been as eager to bomb school children and kill themselves in the process? I doubt it. Also, you used an example from 1795 which no one cares about except for in an historical context. I'm talking about TODAY. Religious fanaticism is providing a lot of fuel for this mess, and if you don't believe that then you should probably watch the news more often. I could give you a stat that I came across the other day which states how many Christians have been murdered in Egypt since the 80's, but I have to find it. It was quite high. It's not just the taliban either, there are a lot of people who are causing problems in the middle east because they hold their religious organization way too close. We get them on litnet sometimes, "if you deny that Muhammad is the true prophet, blah blah blah." You must have come across a few, it's creepy.

I also assert that if people didn't thump their bible so hard, they might actually think about other people before condemning homosexuals to hell and denying them their legal human rights on the grounds of "it's what God wants."

Also, if the Catholic church wasn't literally handed so much power and cash, do you think that there would be as many people currently dying of AIDS in Africa? Do you think that when it was exposed in 2005 that the current pope knowingly advocated the coverup of sexual abuse scandals in Texas he would have still been able to obtain immunity from prosecution on the grounds that he's head of state of the Holy See? People still throw their money and support at the catholic church, even though it's been irrefutably proven that the leaders knowlingly hid evidence of child molestation. Seriously, the fact that they STILL have followers is a testiment to the fact that people hold their religious organization too closely. If the heads of the organization are corrupt, change organizations. There's nothing sacred about a group that would come face to face with someone raping kids and then saying "we'd better not let this get out, it might hurt our image." I understand the value of spirituality, and I'll admit, I have some doubts about materialism. The organization itself though? They're not holy, they're just normal people who have too much power.

My favorite solution to decreasing the ferver with which people defend their religion is that we should make fun of it, and we should be allowed to make fun of it. This latter point is mostly regarding Islam since we're already allowed to mock Christianity (which is good), although the catholic church did once press for an Itallian comedian to be thrown in prison for five years for insulting the pope. You can't find a network that would so much as show an image of Muhammad, let alone allow their writers to make fun of him, because they're (understandably) afraid that they'll be bombed. I think that we should push for the ability to make light of Muhammad, and I guess we could start by doing so on the internet (because you can't bomb the internet). I've always thought that comedy has power in society, you can trace the affects of various comedic trends. *shrug* I was still reading cartoon strips from the French Revolution in highschool. Comedy affects public opinion, and it really plays a role in preventing people from taking something too much to heart, which is what I'm saying is a big problem right now in regards to people's relationship with their church.

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You clearly are not understanding why I brought up the French Revolution and Communism. :banghead: The point is from what evidence we can look at from history it doesn't seem people would have any difficulty whatsoever finding other reasons to kill and oppress each other without religion as a pretext. So I'm talking about today too. If there was no religion today, people would still do awful crap to each other, plain and simple.

So belaboring the same points about the evils of religion seems to be you having a desire to strain you're typing fingers. It doesn't disprove anything I said.

Yes, religion can motivate some bad behavior, but given history and what I've seen of human behavior today, it isn't hard to imagine people finding other ways to justify these actions or simply performing other horrible actions.

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

You clearly are not understanding why I brought up the French Revolution and Communism.

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Er, no. I got it. I addressed that point several posts ago:

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

Could people kill each other purely to force atheism? Sure, I could picture it, people could do anything. Do they? Not right now, no. Right now they're killing each other to force their religion, so that's what I'm going to worry about.

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You seem to be saying "meh, if there were no religious fanatics everything would still be the same":

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Originally Posted by Drkshadow03

If there was no religion today, people would still do awful crap to each other, plain and simple.

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Yeah, they'd still be doing all of the awful crap that they're already doing to each other that isn't religiously motivated, but they wouldn't do the religiously motivated stuff, which adds up to a lot. It would be worth the effort to subtract the religiously-motivated hate crimes. Unless you're saying that they'd still do the same stuff, except they'd find other reasons to do it, in which case I disagree. They'd still war over oil (they'd have less suicide bombers though, and less people randomly killing innocent people, people who are of their own nationality, while they're just minding their own business at school or church or something), but if there were no catholic church, would someone feel the need to step up in a secular way and attempt to convince Africans not to use condoms in the middle of an AIDS outbreak? What would motivate them to do that?

I think we'd have pretty much the same amount of violence and horrible behavior without religion. Humanity doesn't need much of an excuse to be horrible.

But that doesn't make sense, the suffering caused with religion as the main or primary motivating factor are numerically significant. How could reducing the motivation not decrease the behaviour? That would mean that if the Catholic church wasn't getting away with hiding child molestation for fifty years, someone else would. That doesn't reflect reality.

Religion isn't the cause. The cause is inside the people who commit the acts. Religion is their excuse. To use your example above, without the Catholic Church, the molesters who were covered for by the church would still be predators, and the people currently doing the covering up would be covering something else up wherever they were working. It's not about protecting child molesters in their mind; it's about protecting the church, which they see as bigger and more important. Were they working in government or the corporate world, they'd do the same, because that's their philosophy.

Drkshadow03 and Mutatis are correct IMO. People are the same, regardless of religion, political party, or what have you. The good people will be good, and the bad ones will be bad.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

But that doesn't make sense, the suffering caused with religion as the main or primary motivating factor are numerically significant. How could reducing the motivation not decrease the behaviour? That would mean that if the Catholic church wasn't getting away with hiding child molestation for fifty years, someone else would. That doesn't reflect reality.

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Well, I would say the prime factor is writting. The majority of big wars had to do with people writting "i will make a war with you" and the other said writting back "fine, saturday after the football"

Very few of the wars are among illiterate leaders. I think you should consider it.

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Originally Posted by Calidore

Religion isn't the cause. The cause is inside the people who commit the acts. Religion is their excuse. To use your example above, without the Catholic Church, the molesters who were covered for by the church would still be predators, and the people currently doing the covering up would be covering something else up wherever they were working. It's not about protecting child molesters in their mind; it's about protecting the church, which they see as bigger and more important. Were they working in government or the corporate world, they'd do the same, because that's their philosophy.

Drkshadow03 and Mutatis are correct IMO. People are the same, regardless of religion, political party, or what have you. The good people will be good, and the bad ones will be bad.

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Calidore, while I agree with the overall tenor of your post I must take issue with the part in bold. There are such a high number of pedophile priests because the church forbids them from having sex or marrying. Their natual sex instinct is suppressed and thereby perverted. You do hear of coaches and other persons molesting children but not nearly as often as you hear of priests. The reason behind their not being allowed to marry is really quite sinister. I heard a historian explain that the vatican instituted this ban so that their priests would be left without heirs and their property thus turned over to the church. Much of the church's staggering fortune and land holdings have come about due to this.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

If religion wasn't so societal and it wasn't taken so seriously, I think that people in positions of power would have a much more difficult time convincing people to kill each other and themselves.

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This makes sense. I'm wary of blaming religion for all the world's ills as some militant atheists are prone to do, but it is culpable for many atrocities that have happened or are happening. How many muslim youth could be persuaded to blow themelves and others up were it not for their faith rendering them pawns? Would there be any other reason for condom use to be deemed evil in aids-stricken Africa? I think not. If religion were to vanish the sum total of human suffering may meaningfully lessen. It would not dissapear however. For every evil done in the name of religion I could name several done for the sake of greed.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

Calidore, while I agree with the overall tenor of your post I must take issue with the part in bold. There are such a high number of pedophile priests because the church forbids them from having sex or marrying. Their natual sex instinct is suppressed and thereby perverted. You do hear of coaches and other persons molesting children but not nearly as often as you hear of priests. The reason behind their not being allowed to marry is really quite sinister. I heard a historian explain that the vatican instituted this ban so that their priests would be left without heirs and their property thus turned over to the church. Much of the church's staggering fortune and land holdings have come about due to this.

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I disagree. My guess is that many pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood because they know they are sexually attracted to children, and they WANT to abstain from sex (because they know sex with children is both evil and socially unacceptable). Unfortunately, they are unable to abstain (and, no doubt, the Church is to blame because they have not rooted out a culture of sex abuse).

I'd guess a high percentage of priests in the past were gay, for the same reason.

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

I disagree. My guess is that many pedophiles are attracted to the priesthood because they know they are sexually attracted to children, and they WANT to abstain from sex (because they know sex with children is both evil and socially unacceptable). Unfortunately, they are unable to abstain (and, no doubt, the Church is to blame because they have not rooted out a culture of sex abuse).

I'd guess a high percentage of priests in the past were gay, for the same reason.

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A Catholic with profound spiritual yearnings, feeling himself called upon to serve God, is going to enter the priesthood, regardless of sexuality. I'm sure there is an element of what you say, but its not enough to account for the high percentage of pedophiles in the priesthood. Its a silly rule and ought to be abolished.

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Originally Posted by Darcy88

A Catholic with profound spiritual yearnings, feeling himself called upon to serve God, is going to enter the priesthood, regardless of sexuality. I'm sure there is an element of what you say, but its not enough to account for the high percentage of pedophiles in the priesthood. Its a silly rule and ought to be abolished.

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My guess is just a guess. However, based on what we know about human sexuality it doesn't seem like people would suddenly become attracted to children just because they were not allowed to have sex. Priests could just as easily have elicit sex with adults, if that was their sexual proclivity.

I agree it's a silly rule, though.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

But that doesn't make sense, the suffering caused with religion as the main or primary motivating factor are numerically significant. How could reducing the motivation not decrease the behaviour? That would mean that if the Catholic church wasn't getting away with hiding child molestation for fifty years, someone else would. That doesn't reflect reality.

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I'm primarily talking about violence--murder, death, etc. I don't disagree that there is a clear link between Catholic priests and molestation, but I also wonder if these pedophiles need religion to commit these acts--it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they still turned out to be pedophiles without becoming priests. It's not that someone else would, just that the same people would for a different reason.

Make sense or not, it's what I believe. I think religion is often more of an excuse than a reason for people to commit violence. A lot of the suicide bombers and the like come from very poor socio-economic situations, and are ripe from brain-washing. It's how most terrorists are recruited. They have nothing to live for, and once they are given something to live for, they latch on to it, even if it means committing suicide. If they didn't do it for religion, maybe their reasons would be completely political (which has already been the case).

All I'm saying is that violence will find a way. It doesn't need religion. I'm not defending religion here, I'm just saying that if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandi

I'm primarily talking about violence--murder, death, etc. I don't disagree that there is a clear link between Catholic priests and molestation, but I also wonder if these pedophiles need religion to commit these acts--it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they still turned out to be pedophiles without becoming priests. It's not that someone else would, just that the same people would for a different reason.

Make sense or not, it's what I believe. I think religion is often more of an excuse than a reason for people to commit violence. A lot of the suicide bombers and the like come from very poor socio-economic situations, and are ripe from brain-washing. It's how most terrorists are recruited. They have nothing to live for, and once they are given something to live for, they latch on to it, even if it means committing suicide. If they didn't do it for religion, maybe their reasons would be completely political (which has already been the case).

All I'm saying is that violence will find a way. It doesn't need religion. I'm not defending religion here, I'm just saying that if it wasn't religion, it'd be something else.

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I agree with Mutis here, religion, comunism, fascism, liberty, freedom, patriotism, civilization - all of these ahave been used as flags to motivate the masses into behaving as wanted by the elite. Religion per se is not the problem.

Besides, I am not religious, but what is not being accounted for in this discussion is the relief that religion has provided to millions of people. I mean we all know life is tough, especialy for those is the non western world, and we all have those dark moments. For many relligion offers them some hope, some relief from that pain. I do not care if it is an illusion or not, what the people feel is real and to want to take that away from them for the sake of "truth" or "progress" seems machinelike and soulless.