Mageth

I'm more willing to bet it was slaveholders who let their pocketbooks interfere with their science. Anyway, I can't name them off hand but go to your local library and pick up a book called "Africans in America" there is a section in the middle containing documents and drawings on the inferiority of the Negro, all scientific in origin.

I'll concede your point on "science" being used to defend slavery, but it was used in conjunction with religion. I quickly found a quote from a speech by Alexander Hamilton Stephens, VP of the confederacy:

Vorkosigan

Luvluv,

There have been many, many "secular saints," great men and women like Albert Einstein. Additionally, there are large numbers of truly wonderful non-religious in Asian societies, where irreligion is high (90% in Japan). You should probably broaden your perspectives a little.

In any case, it is absolutely undeniable that religion increases morality. The question is whether the kind of inhuman, incoherent, incomplete, intolerant, authoritarian morality western religions espouse is something that is good for society. And that question has already been answered by history. Christian morality has been given up almost entirely throughout the West, replaced by a human-centered morality that focuses on freedom, human rights, tolerance, democracy and other things that western religions have generally opposed.

Michael

[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: turtonm ]</p>

Eudaimonist

I expected you to disagree. However, all of the people I have mentioned have advanced human life in some way. Before Mother Teresa could distribute food or medicine to the poor, productive people had to grow that food and create those medicines. Inventors, scientists, and other productive individuals have created the goods that that sustain and enhance our lives. Saints, such as Mother Teresa, often piggyback on their shoulders, yet get all the credit.

[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonia ]</p>

luvluv

Mageth I am actually pretty well read on the subject of slavery, and I can tell you that it is economics that motivates it, and that both science and relgion enable it after it has been found to be profitable. Thus, science and religion are both guilty of justifying slavery, but it was religion which took the primary role of ending it.

turtomn says:

"there are large numbers of truly wonderful non-religious in Asian societies, where irreligion is high (90% in Japan). You should probably broaden your perspectives a little.

In any case, it is absolutely undeniable that religion increases morality. The question is whether the kind of inhuman, incoherent, incomplete, intolerant, authoritarian morality western religions espouse is something that is good for society. And that question has already been answered by history. Christian morality has been given up almost entirely throughout the West, replaced by a human-centered morality that focuses on freedom, human rights, tolerance, democracy and other things that western religions have generally opposed."

Which, yet again, has nothing to do with the topic of this post, which is about the inability of atheism to produce Saints. Might I conclude that since none of you are adressing my main argument that you have conceeded the point?

Eudaimonist

I have listed a few "Saints" of my conception of morality. Just because you don't view them as Saints does not mean they don't have moral excellence.

[ March 07, 2002: Message edited by: Eudaimonia ]</p>

ohwilleke

Paine was a deist not involved in organized religion.

Percy Shelly, Mary Wollsencraft, and Edwin Godwin all inspired thousands to the causes of atheism, modernity and feminism (including women's sufferage). Some of the sufferagettes, particular some of those who died in pursuit of the vote for women, were inspired by Godwin and Wollsencraft. Their writings did revolutionize society. There lies an important part of the roots for the treatment of women today which is radically different from what it was in the 1800 C.E. They certainly devoted their lives to these causes. I don't recall that any died in the pursuit (Percy died in a sailing crash in his 30s). But, dying for a cause is not a necessary part of one. N'est pas?

Christianity is known to millions of people solely because it happened to become the State religion of Rome, because it helped preserve knowledge in the Dark Ages, and beause of the historical principal that all subjects must adopt the religion of their ruler. Many people were inspired to live good lives by Greek philosophers who lived before Jesus as well. Epicurius is probably closer to what we consider moral in 2002, than Jesus. Moreover, moral advances are hard to separate from political ones. The Bill of Rights championed by Jefferson, made possible not just religious freedom, but such basics as guarantees against cruel and unusual punishment and freedom from torture as a means of securing confessions. Are these not moral injunctions which have made the United States a moral nation in the world scene.

I certainly think that he is a great moral leader. He influenced MLK's view of morality (and indeed helped make civil as opposed to violent disobedience a norm in American society). He is one of the early figures in what is now called the "simplicity movement" which is an important moral movement in the United States. His personal example inspired and continues to inspire people long after his death. You don't have to create riots or be a martyr to be a moral leader or even a moral Saint. Budda didn't do that, Confucius (one of the greatest secular moral leaders of history whose secular philosophy is central to Chinese, Korean and Japanese life) didn't do that, and certainly many of the important moral figures in the Christian and Jewish traditions didn't do that (the authors of Proverbs, for example)

Emerson spent time as a Unitarian preacher, but was drummed out of even the very liberal Unitarian clergy for abandoning religion.

Simply put, this is not history, and history is about detail. The Crusades were drains on the coffers of the nations that brought them, not profit centers. The Church did own land, but this providing financing to persecute heretics and wage war, not the other way around. The Irish-English was not nearly so acrimonious before it was tinged with religion and was specifically carried out on a religious basis at the direction of religiously motivated English monarchs. If mere Colonialism was so bad, why did Ireland and the U.S., both of which has severe religious differences with the U.K. rebel, while Canada and Australia and New Zealand, which all shared religious feelings with the U.K. remain loyal?

I a singificant proportion of historians would agree that historical European Christian animosity to Jews, and not eugenics, was the princpal motivator. Whether Hitler was Christian or not (and I would argue clearly that he was), the Christian religion and the desire to carry out Christian religious ideals articulated among others by sucessive Popes, was the motivator.

I think it may be fair to say the the feeling of righteousness produced by religion may motivate people to great good and great evil. Almost everyone who does great evil believes that it is in the cause of great good. But, I don't think that lack of a belief in religion is necessary.

Confucius, a secular man, is in every Japanese classroom. He has influenced personal human relationship by his teachings. His influence is felt long after his death (although this criteria obviously is unfair, as atheism is a fairly young approach to the question of God in much of the world).

Marx likewise had this influence . . . if you consider him bad rather than good you may deny it, but he changed the way people from Berlin to Bejeing lived their daily lives, caused the government of Cuba to make education and health care priorities over guns and high living, helped dozens of nations overcome colonialism in favor of independence.

Felix Adler is on as many living room walls as St. Olaf. Foucault has changed as many lives as Aquinas. John Stuart Mill has influenced as many moral decisions as Dwight Moody. Aristotle has had as much moral influence as Calvin.

luvluv

They fail to meet the criteria of people whose teachings PERSONAL EXAMPLES have changed the daily person-to-person interactions of everday people.

No doubt, they made very useful inventions, but nobody goes out and does great good for others because of their teachings or examples.

Plus, nobody hangs their pictures in their living rooms.

JL

I feel I am adressing your argument at its heart. You are crediting religion for all its positive effects while shifting the blame away from its attrocities. You say religion 'produced' the heroes but is not responsible for the villains.

Ok, sure I'll say it raised the ceiling for morality, are you honest enough to say it also raised the ceilng for immorality?

How do you seperate the two?

Eudaimonist

These are not criteria that I accept. I guess that means we'll have to agree to disagree.

Vorkosigan

Which, yet again, has nothing to do with the topic of this post, which is about the inability of atheism to produce Saints. Might I conclude that since none of you are adressing my main argument that you have conceeded the point?

The topic of this post, proposed by YOU, was "Does Religion Increase Morality?"

Atheism cannot produce saints. Saints are religious people devoted to supernatural entities. Atheism does produce people devoted to other human beings, however.

BTW, have you read Hitchens on Mother Teresa? The woman is a fraud.
<a href="http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/august96/hakeem.html" target="_blank">http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/august96/hakeem.html</a>
<a href="http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/hitchens_mother_teresa.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/hitchens_mother_teresa.shtml</a>
<a href="http://www.urbanlegends.com/religion/mother_teresa.html" target="_blank">http://www.urbanlegends.com/religion/mother_teresa.html</a>

Michael