Vorkosigan

I am saying that non-religious people have yet to produce a Gandhi or an MLK or a Mother Theresa.

Well. Luv, originally you said that atheists couldn't produce such people. After we put up several, you shifted the goalposts to non-religious people. You also failed to address the ethical concerns involving Mother Teresa I put forth earlier. So why should we pay attention to this question?

In any case, there are thousands of good non-religious people, like my director's wife, who runs a shelter for dogs here in Taiwan where people despise them, who are not religious. They just don't get the publicity that people like Mother Teresa do. They are too busy actually and practically working for some ideal.

BTW, I personally differentiate sharply between nigh-on worthless parasites like Mother Teresa, and genuinely great people like Dorothy Day, Gandhi or MLK. I don't appreciate seeing them lumped together. If you want a great religious woman saint, you should go with Day.

In any case, Japan is 90% non-religious. Hong Kong, ~60%. In Taiwan, my personal estimate is about one-third. In Communist countries many dissidents are atheists; we never here of them; they get killed. Are you aware of the social life of those cultures enough to make a confident determination that there are no great humanitarians like Gandhi or MLK in them?

BTW, you should read Sharp's The Politics of Non-violent Action. Gandhi was impressed by many examples of non-violent action, including many non-religious examples, such as purely peaceful actions of American resistance to British indignities. Hope and Young's The Struggle for Humanity is another good review of non-violent tactics.

Let's see. I wonder where the goalposts will shift to this time.

Michael

Jamie_L

Umm, yeah. Does the U.S. government treat its citizens differently than the Mondarchies that preceeded it? Do people living under that government view their rights and the rights of others differently than those under previous systems? The contributions of these men helped usher in the whole concept of government based on individual rights. They didn't do it single-handedly, but to say that their merely "political" contributions did not impact the well being of countless future generations is sorely mistaken, I believe.

Now, why aren't there all kinds of good deed recorded by the irreligious during much of European history? Well, maybe because churches ran Europe and anyone openly declared as irrelligious was persecuted and often executed? It's hard to be a crusading atheist under those conditions. After all, there weren't any atheists or agnostics back then. Just heretics.

Jamie

ex-preacher

Questions for luvluv:

1. You take as a premise that certain individuals were moral due to religion. I tend to think that Gandhi was largely motivated by pure humanism/humanitarianism. Didn't he at one point say: "I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian, I am a Jew"? Didn't he also say: "The only demons that exist are the ones in the hearts of people"? Where did he make his appeal based on religion?

2. Wasn't MLK largely influenced by Gandhi, Thoreau, liberal professors at Harvard, and his own humanitarian impulses? Does it bother that MLK said that the 6th commandment (Thou shalt not kill) actually meant "Don't kill any Israelites, but for God's sake, kill the Philistines"? While MLK certainly used a lot of Scripture, doesn't it appear that his appeal was to humane motives, not religious? (see "I Have a Dream" speech).

3. Is it really fair to line up a list of non-theistic good people and compare it to theistic good people, since throughout most of human history, it was illegal and/or socially unacceptable to be non-theistic?

4. Are you aware that the two largest charitable contributions in human history were made by atheists? (Ted Turner and Bill Gates)

5. While the following people who did a lot for humanity were nominally religious, how do explain the utter lack of personal religious sentiment in their personal writings?
Abraham Lincoln
Winston Churchill
William Shakepeare
Leonardo da Vinci
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson (War on Poverty)

6. What were the views of W.E.B. DuBois on religion?

7. What about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton?

8. Margaret Sanger?

9. Albert Einstein?

10. Have you read Josiah Priest's 500 page book "A Biblical Defense of Slavery"? You say you have studied slavery. Then you must surely be aware that for about 1700 years of Christianity, hardly any Christian ever protested slavery. They only discovered that slavery must be wrong after the humanist Enlightenment. Benjamin Franklin and THomas Paine were the first prominent Americans to call for abolition of slavery. You must be aware that many deeply religious Americans supported slavery and saw it as completely consistent with scripture. They thought slavery was good because it gave heathen Africans a chance at salvation. How can you whitewash this fact by claiming that the real motive was purely economic?

11. Can you please point me to the passages where Jesus, Paul or any other person in the Bible condemned monarchy and advocated democracy?

luvluv

I've got a lot to respond to, and in all honesty the ACC tournament is today so I won't get to all of it, but I'll just quickly deal with this one point while I have it in my head. This is a quote from Common Sense, and it deals with ex-preacher's request for a passage from the Bible that condemned monarchy. Paine does not mention the chapter and verse from which he is quoting, I will do a search on that and bring that back to you folks later. Everything set off by quotations is from the Bible, sorry for the confusion in the earlier post:

Near three thousand years passed away from the Mosaic account of the creation, till the Jews under a national delusion requested a king. Till then their form of government (except in extraordinary cases, where the Almighty interposed) was a kind of republic administered by a judge and the elders of the tribes. Kings they had none, and it was held sinful to acknowledge any being under that title but the Lord of Hosts. And when a man seriously reflects on the idolatrous homage which is paid to the persons of Kings, he need not wonder, that the Almighty ever jealous of his honor, should disapprove of a form of government which so impiously invades the prerogative of heaven. 6
Monarchy is ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews, for which a curse in reserve is denounced against them. The history of that transaction is worth attending to. 7
The children of Israel being oppressed by the Midianites, Gideon marched against them with a small army, and victory, thro' the divine interposition, decided in his favour. The Jews elate with success, and attributing it to the generalship of Gideon, proposed making him a king, saying,

"Rule thou over us, thou and thy son and thy son's son."

Here was temptation in its fullest extent; not a kingdom only, but an hereditary one, but Gideon in the piety of his soul replied,

"I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you. THE LORD SHALL RULE OVER YOU".

Words need not be more explicit; Gideon doth not decline the honor, but denieth their right to give it; neither doth he compliment them with invented declarations of his thanks, but in the positive stile of a prophet charges them with disaffection to their proper Sovereign, the King of heaven. 8
About one hundred and thirty years after this, they fell again into the same error. The hankering which the Jews had for the idolatrous customs of the Heathens, is something exceedingly unaccountable; but so it was, that laying hold of the misconduct of Samuel's two sons, who were entrusted with some secular concerns, they came in an abrupt and clamorous manner to Samuel, saying,

"Behold thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways, now make us a king to judge us like all the other nations."

And here we cannot but observe that their motives were bad, viz. that they might be like unto other nations, i. e. the Heathens, whereas their true glory laid in being as much unlike them as possible. But the thing displeased Samuel when they said,

"Give us a king to judge us; and Samuel prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee, for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, THAT I SHOULD NOT REIGN OVER THEM. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even unto this day; wherewith they have forsaken me and served other Gods; so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice, howbeit, protest solemnly unto them and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them,"

i. e. not of any particular king, but the general manner of the kings of the earth, whom Israel was so eagerly copying after. And notwithstanding the great distance of time and difference of manners, the character is still in fashion.

"And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people, that asked of him a king. And he said, This shall be the manner of the king that shall reign over you; he will take your sons and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen, and some shall run before his chariots (this description agrees with the present mode of impressing men) and he will appoint him captains over thousands and captains over fifties, and will set them to ear his ground and to read his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots; and he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks and to be bakers (this describes the expence and luxury as well as the oppression of kings) and he will take your fields and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants; and he will take the tenth of your feed, and of your vineyards, and give them to his officers and to his servants (by which we see that bribery, corruption, and favoritism are the standing vices of kings) and he will take the tenth of your men servants, and your maid servants, and your goodliest young men and your asses, and put them to his work; and he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants, and ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen, AND THE LORD WILL NOT HEAR YOU IN THAT DAY."

This accounts for the continuation of monarchy; neither do the characters of the few good kings which have lived since, either sanctify the title, or blot out the sinfulness of the origin; the high encomium given of David takes no notice of him officially as a king, but only as a man after God's own heart. Nevertheless the People refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. Samuel continued to reason with them, but to no purpose; he set before them their ingratitude, but all would not avail; and seeing them fully bent on their folly, he cried out,

"I will call unto the Lord, and he shall send thunder and rain (which then was a punishment, being in the time of wheat harvest) that ye may perceive and see that your wickedness is great which ye have done in the sight of the Lord, IN ASKING YOU A KING. So Samuel called unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord and Samuel. And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the Lord thy God that we die not, for WE HAVE ADDED UNTO OUR SINS THIS EVIL, TO ASK A KING."

These portions of scripture are direct and positive. They admit of no equivocal construction. That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true, or the scripture is false. And a man hath good reason to believe that there is as much of king-craft, as priest-craft, in withholding the scripture from the public in Popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the Popery of government.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

luvluv

ohwillke, on the points of whether or not the Holocaust was caused by Hitler's Christianity, and whether or not the revolutionary war was a war of Protestants against Anglicans, I will respectfully disagree. I will just leave the point by saying that every history book I have ever encountered disagrees with you: I have never read that Hitler was motivated by Christianity nor that the Revolutionary war was caused by disagreements over the nature of the Trinity. My argument, was that most religious wars had more basic existential causes that were not religious in nature. I am unmoved on that point.

turtonm

No, I simply will not get into smearing people who have done great good for humanity. If this makes me not worth arguing with, then I thank you for the insights you have provided up until this point and I look forward to arguing with you on a different topic.

HOWEVER, it simply does not matter to the main point of my argument. I already argued that it is irrelavent to my main point whether or not the motivation of every Saint was entirely pure. Being human, I would never imagine that their motivations COULD be entirely pure. I argued that:

1) Saints are necessary in pushing mankind ahead in it's moral treatment of other human beings

2) Saints come more often from religion than from irreligion

3) Religious Saints are more effective than conservative Saints.

Notice the virtue of each Saint is not really as important as the effect their percieved virtue had on society. The fact is, America could have very easily deteriorated into a racial Bosnia had it not been for the work of Martin Luther King. That being the case, I hardly think it matters if Martin Luther King cheated at cards. I am not arguing that religion makes men perfect, I am not even arguing that Saints have to be pefect. Whatever Mother Theresa did in her spare time, the fact is her work saved MILLIONS of lives. Ask any of them whether or not they care about how rude she may have been.

I am indeed arguing about the effects Saints have on humanity at large, and that is not effected by the personal moral failings of each Saint (we all have those, that hardly requires great religion).

tronvillian

But you did not suggest that MLK was confused about the cause, you argued that he was confused about the nature of afterlife. You in effect argued that if MLK gave his life because he believed in an afterlife, that that detracted from his cause. You said that therefore the cause was not worth fighting for. That implies to me that you would rather MLK have given up fighting for Civil Rights if he would not consent to atheism. At any rate it is hardly worth arguing over. I apologize if I misunderstood your remarks.

tronvillian says:

"You do realize that your position appears to be that the truth doesn't matter as long as people behave the way you want them to?"

I honestly don't see how I am saying this, please explain. I am certainly saying it is not central to my argument whether or not the Saints were right about the afterlife, so long as there belief in the afterlife enabled them to do great good on earth from which everyone, even atheists, benefit. If that is what you are accusing me of, guilty as charged.

Sivikami:

"Proves you did not understand it. It was a logical proof of how religious morality is absolute bunkum"

Again, it doesn't matter if it is bunkum or not, men who believed it have done greater good than men who didn't believe it. That is my point, and that is why most of your post, respectfully, is not relevant to the discussion.

turomn says:

"Let's see. I wonder where the goalposts will shift to this time."

Michael, I have no problem adjusting my position due to argument. One of the main reasons I am here in this relatively private forum is to use you rather intelligent folks to help me more solidly present my arguments when I have to do so in a more public forum. I have conceeded points because I felt like you guys were right. But I still think the adjustment to my argument is a more accurate representation of proof than your argument, which I believe would be that religion is irrelavent to achieving great moral acts.

ex-preacher:

I don't know what relevance your comments on Gandhi have. I know that he himself was a religious man, and that he was influenced by the work of Jesus among others. That's about all I need to prove my point.

As to MLK, again I would reccomend you read the Letter from a Birmingham jail to see King's use of the scriptures as a moral appeal. You can probably read it online, its not very long. King wrote MUCH MUCH more than the I have a dream speech, it would be a grevious error to try to define his positions by that one speech. I think the Letter from a Birmingham Jail is a better overview of his position.

you said:

"3. Is it really fair to line up a list of non-theistic good people and compare it to theistic good people, since throughout most of human history, it was illegal and/or socially unacceptable to be non-theistic?"

Yes it is fair, because by defintion most of the Saints were persecuted because their beliefs were in advance of their fellows, regardless of the beliefs of their fellows. Most of the Saints died, or at least had their lives endangered, because of their beliefs. Atheists don't get a pass on this one, because the beliefs of all the Saints were "illegal and socially unacceptable". It is not a coincidence that most of the Saints are martyred.

you say:

"4. Are you aware that the two largest charitable contributions in human history were made by atheists? (Ted Turner and Bill Gates)"

Kind of a coincidence, beause they were rich. But if you want to go around calling Ted Turner and Bill Gates Saints, hey, I won't argue with you. (But, I'll probably be the only one who won't).

I actually don't know what W.E.B. Dubois arguments were on religion, but I would not count him as a Saint.

I'll grant you Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Whether or not they rank in stature with an MLK, a Jesus, or a Gandhi is debatable. I may have to adjust my argument however, because it does seem that scale is important in terms of determining who is a Saint, and who is just a very nice human being. Ghandi, Jesus, Confucious (your guy) and MLK changed the entire world. I don't know that your two ladies did. I never said that atheists never acted in the community, I just said they do so less often and to a lesser degree.

If you think the underlying cause of slavery was religious, then I reccomend you read "Africans in America" as well as some of the work of Genovease, a Marxist historian. Anecdotally, I can argue briefly that Slavery was economic in nature because non-profitable slaves were routinely killed or left to die. Slaves that were injured or elder and no longer could produce labor were often left alone in the woods to die or were unceremoniously killed. If you look at how slaveowners treated their slaves, it was primarily due to economic concerns. Also, it was illegal to teach slaves to read the Bible, and it was widely believed in the South that blacks did not have souls. But again, this is not worth arguing about on this thread because it is off the topic. We'll agree to disagree on that one.

Hope I got to everybody, forgive me if I didn't because it is just me against all you intelligent people and that makes it harder on me to reply than it is on some of you.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

luvluv

The first quote from Paine comes from Judges 8:22. The second quote, describing the evil that monarchy produces, comes from 1 Samuel Chapter 8.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

ex-preacher

I don't believe I said that the cause of slavery was religious. Certainly, slavery was an economic system. My point is that the Bible provided ample support for those who wanted to practice slavery. I have read Eugene Genovese's "Roll, Jordan, Roll." Is that your reference? He does not address the cause of slavery. Incidentally he became a Catholic a number of years ago. I have read many, many books and journal articles on slavery as this is one of areas of graduate study. If you do not understand the religious support that was given to slavery by most Christians in America, both South (the Bible Belt) and North, then you are woefully uninformed. The major denominations in the South, who agreed on little else, came together in 1860 to make a concerted and strong statement in support of the Biblical support for slavery.

<strong> True on the reading part, but dead wrong regarding souls. The vast majority of slaveholders believed that their slaves had souls. Does that fact that some Christians disbelieved in the souls of blacks somehow support your position? By the late antebellum period, most slaveholders wanted their slaves to get religion - it was widely believed that Christian slaves would be less likely to disobey their masters or revolt. They were right.


One more question: Have you read what Martin Luther said about Jews?

ex-preacher

Clearly, Paine was using a selected passage to support his point. I can give you dozens (if not hundreds) of passages where God appears to fully support and endorse monarchy.

In 1 Sam 9, God selects the king, Saul. When Saul is removed, God selects David. Again and again, God selects a king - he never recommends democracy. Of course, the Israelites prior to 1 Sam 8 were not practicing democracy but direct theocracy under a set of warlords (judges).

Have you heard of this: "Render to Caesar what is Caesar's"? Are you familiar with Romans 13 and the instruction to never rebel against the government since it is instituted by God? How about the admonitions to pray for the king?

I'm still waiting for the passages which call for democracy in government.

ex-preacher

I think we might come closer to agreement if you re-worded your question as follows: "Does religion increase fanaticism?"

The answer is obviously "yes." That fanaticism can be channeled for good or for evil. I would agree that certain individuals, such as Mother Teresa or Father Damien, have made great personal sacrifices for others. I don't think this increased their morality since they were actually motivated by the thought of a reward in heaven - the lowest type of morality. (See Alan Dershowitz's excellent article in the morality section of the library at this site. He argues that only atheists can be truly moral since they act with no motive of reward or punishment in the hereafter.)

Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, religious fanaticism can also be turned to evil purposes. Cases in point:

1. The Sept 11 hijackers
2. Andrea Yates
3. KKK
4. Jim Jones
5. Pat Robertson
6. David Koresh
7. Crusades
8. religious wars throughout history
9. Anti-semitism

Vorkosigan

Whatever Mother Theresa did in her spare time, the fact is her work saved MILLIONS of lives. Ask any of them whether or not they care about how rude she may have been.

Luv, that is the point of Hitchens and MT's Indian critics. She hasn't saved any lives; in fact, many have died who otherwise might have lived. Most of MT's supporters do not know that MT does not provide treatment. Thus, she does not save lives. Rather, because of her stinginess in reusing needles, her refusal to provide basic medicine, and her belief that suffering ennobles, she has killed many.

You do not have to take my word for it. Read.

Here's another article on her by Hitchens:
<a href="http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3.html" target="_blank">http://www.salon.com/sept97/news/news3.html</a>

And one from an Indian critic:
<a href="http://www.indiastar.com/DhiruShah.htm" target="_blank">http://www.indiastar.com/DhiruShah.htm</a>

And from an initially enthused Indian interviewer:
<a href="http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/0297/0058.html" target="_blank">http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/0297/0058.html</a>

From the above
I had not met her before, and asked, during our preliminary discussion, what distinguished her from other social workers.
Mother Teresa was horrified. She was not doing social service. She was "helping the poor" because "our lord" had told her to do so for the sake of her own soul. She stressed the difference between social service as an end for those who are helped, and service for the helper's spiritual welfare. "So the good work you do is for your own sake?" I asked. "The beneficial effect that it has is only incidental, the real purpose is your personal salvation?"
Mother Teresa did not disagree.

But, let's look at what Indians do, instead of frauds like Mother Teresa:
<a href="http://www.indiastar.com/DhiruShah.htm" target="_blank">http://www.indiastar.com/DhiruShah.htm</a>

• Acharya Shri Chandananji, a Jain nun, has been carrying on a crusade of uplifting the illiterate and poor section of the society in Bihar since 1973. She founded an institution called "Veeraytan" at Rajgir, Bihar with the clear objective of 'providing unflinching service in the field of community health, education, and employment' which has created a total social transformation of that locality. It teaches 'the practicality of religion to the modern scientific world, a religion totally honest to mankind and entirely free from the sectarian prejudices.' The institution has set up a hundered bed charitable eye hospital along with other medical facilities which is basically managed by the nuns supported by a medical team of surgeons, doctors, nurses, and medical students. Veerayatan is also involved in uplifting the lives of thousands of deprived local children by providing free meals and education. It also provides training facilities in vocational courses like carpentry, pottery, and medical staff attendents. Acharya Shri Chandanaji has been able to prove in spite of several problems and challenges that it is possible to serve the poor and needy without any sectarian bias.

Note that MT's mission in Calcutta provides none of the things listed in the paragraph above.

Consider this sequence from the Hitchens interview:

• FI: But if people go to her clinics for the dying and they need medical care, does she send them on to the proper places?
  HITCHENS: Not according to the testimony of a number of witnesses. I printed the accounts of several witnesses whose testimony I could verify and I've had many other communications from former volunteers in Calcutta and in other missions. All of them were very shocked to find when they got there that they had missed some very crucial point and that very often people who come under the false impression that they would receive medical care are either neglected or given no advice. In other words, anyone going in the hope of alleviation of a serious medical condition has made a huge mistake.

Here are some comments from someone <a href="http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/shields_18_1.html" target="_blank">who actually worked with her</a>:

• When Mother spoke publicly, she never asked for money, but she did encourage people to make sacrifices for the poor, to "give until it hurts." Many people did - and they gave it to her. We received touching letters from people, sometimes apparently poor themselves, who were making sacrifices to send us a little money for the starving people in Africa, the flood victims in Bangladesh, or the poor children in India. Most of the money sat in our bank accounts.

MT has said that the "suffering of the poor is something very beautiful and the world is being very much helped by the nobility of this example of misery and suffering."

She once told a crowd of lepers that their affliction was a "gift from god" and contended that there was a "mystery and a gift about suffering".

Only a sick person, an amoral and nihilistic person, a completely evil person, considers suffering in others to be beautiful. Suffering is sick, and it should be ended whenever humanly possible. And in her case, with her wealth, it is possible to ameliorate much suffering.

As Gandhiji himself said: "If I had the power and could legislate, I should certainly
stop all proselytising." (Collected Works, Vol 61, page 46-47; Shourie, p. 38).

Luvluv, I beg you to do the research yourself. Read the books. You have been hornswoggled by a fake.

Michael