Answerer

Hi mageth, thats what I'm trying to say, too bad that Blu is refuse to accept this alternative view.

ju'iblex

yes i am, but to prove a point. What you said previously about Muslims was both uncalled for and offensive. I am no fan of religion, but to make such offensive, and unsubstatiated statements such as that, is wrong both in the sense of being correct and also in the sense of being politically correct. as yet you have not given me any evidence that

this is because, i imagine, you cannot.

Answerer

Well Juilbex, the previous website have already given a lots of evidence for my point. Besides, I never say all of the muslims are hyprocites, it is you who assume that. If you still skeptic about the evidence that this website, don't worry for I have more websites. By the way, I can imagine things too, don't anyhow assume things that you don't know.

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

Blu

I honestly do not know where to even begin!

From Mageth:

Of course religion isn't the only factor, but it's often used as justification for other motives. Ever heard of Manifest Destiny? Defense of slavery as biblical? (it took a couple of decades of chaos to overcome this).

Ever seen videos of some of the pro-life rallies outside abortion clinics? Ever heard of Drs and nurses being threatened or killed by anti-choice zealots for religious reasons?

Ever read about those Southern Baptist conventions with their battling conservatives and liberals?


My response:

Again my "Religion as a tool," theory comes into play here. Slavers took people from Africa because their was a so called "market" for slaves because the plantations in America needed workers and the owners of plantations were "greedy." They look in the Bible and say, "God says I can do this because it says so in the Bible."

And then when enough people tell themselves this, it is usually the group dynamic and then culture that sustains the "belief"... A lot of Christians, I will also say, were against slavery. If you take the "greed" aspect... the inhumanity of slavers.... then there would have been no real drive for slavery. So religion again does not fuel this aspect in our history.

Abortion issue: First of all a real Christian who actually read the Bible would know that killing people is against the 10 commandments and just a big no-no. People who are angry and fear that people are killing babies (pro-life view) take action. They want some sort of support so they claim affiliation to a religion.. In fact they are not following scriptures when they kill or threaten to kill. Again religion is used as a big scapegoat for people who are angry and agressive... and who want to or who have killed.

(take a big breath)

Anyway, what is blatantly obvious to me seems to be "Greek" to most people in this forum...

I think atheist are using all these issues as scapegoats to try to justify their unwavering view that religion causes all these atrocities in the world. Some even go so far as to look at these things, decide religion is to blame and then become atheist because of this misconception.

Open eyes see more.

Religion, books, etc are all separate from the human mind. People take in ideas they hear, passages in the Bible or any other doctrine and they mold them to their already present perceptions, beliefs about the world, experiences, persona...

A typical person following a religion is not murderous, not filled with irrational anger and aggression towards another group.

A person who is angry and aggressive will try to affiliate with their culturally dominant religion... This person finds a group of like minded individuals. They mold and twist written scriptures to justify their hatred, murder etc.

What do you think would happen if they did not have so much irrational hatred, aggression and murderous intentions?

You get a typical religious person.

If religion were a cause then wouldn't being simply religious make someone a "terrorist"? No. It wouldn't.

When you take away a cause, isn't it supposed to change the effect? Take away religion from an angry, aggressive, irrational person with murderous intentions, does he not remain angry, aggressive, irrational, and murderous?

Yes because these are aspects of the personality, personal belief regarding life, what was derived from this particular person's experieces. These are inside a person's mental processes perhaps even in their genes.

So wouldn't it be clear that religion does not cause aggression, hatred, fear, and murder??? Obvious to me, it was not religion. In fact, it was the ingrain characteristics of aggression, hatred, and murderous intentions that cause a person to do horrible things. They may claim to do it in the name of religion to try to justify all that they do... religion is a huge scapegoat for people who are just "bloody mad."

What is the ratio to "normal-non angry or murderous" religious people to "murderous, angry, aggressive" religious people? I think it is 1 out of several million or more.

So why do people focus on only that one? I am not clear about this reasoning.

How many people are in the world? Isn't it like 4 billion? How many of these are religious? I think it is half or more. How many people are there who claim to kill in the name of religion? I would say it was a very small ratio to the total of religous people in the world.

So why are all of you using this small ratio of people who claim affiliation to religion to define the whole of religion?

Please answer this... because I hypothesis no one can really justify this reasoning.

DarkBronzePlant

Blu,

I'll answer solely for myself here. Overall, I feel that religion does have a huge influence over people: how they act, what they believe, how they think. It would be sheer lunacy, IMHO, to deny this. This influence can, and is, both positive and negative. I do not say that all effects and outcomes of religion are negative. However this thread (somehow) turned into a discussion of how religion, when properly applied, can cause people to think and act in horrible ways.

Now, you give examples of how people can have ulterior motives (e.g. 'I want to own slaves') and then try to use the bible to justify themselves. And I agree with you that this happens. Sometimes. There definitely have been some cases where someone has an obvious ulterior motive, but then as an afterthought uses religion as a justification.

In and of itself, this is one of the problems I have with religion... that this "divine word of god" is about as clear as mud, and can be interpreted and manipulated to one's heart's content. Is it the "fault" of religion that people continiously re-interprete it? I'd say it's a flaw, a serious one.

But I digress; back to the original point. We've agreed that there are at least some times when people act in some horrific manner for whatever reason, but give religion as an excuse. But I argue that equally, there are many examples of religious teaching being the sole, or major, motivator of evil deeds.

Blu, I ask you flat-out, why are there so many attitudes against homosexuals? Why can a person be killed in this country just for being gay?

More generally, Blu, I ask you... do you feel that religious teachings cannot or have not ever motivated anyone to commit an evil or horrible act? I'm curious as to your answer. You made the statement "Open eyes see more" in your last post. But I don't think you are heeding your own advice. The more I read your posts, the more you seem to just be standing on a soap-box screaming, wondering why everyone else doesn't subscribe to your black-and-white view of things.

Mageth

Blu:

You said:

Again my "Religion as a tool," theory comes into play here.

&lt;snip specifics&gt;

Anyway, what is blatantly obvious to me seems to be "Greek" to most people in this forum...

I think atheist are using all these issues as scapegoats to try to justify their unwavering view that religion causes all these atrocities in the world. Some even go so far as to look at these things, decide religion is to blame and then become atheist because of this misconception.

Perhaps you skipped my first line, or forgot it in your fervor, where I said:

"Of course religion isn't the only factor, but it's often used as justification for other motives."

Mageth

Blu:

You said:

Abortion issue: First of all a real Christian who actually read the Bible would know that killing people is against the 10 commandments and just a big no-no. People who are angry and fear that people are killing babies (pro-life view) take action. They want some sort of support so they claim affiliation to a religion.. In fact they are not following scriptures when they kill or threaten to kill.

Perhaps you're taking the 10 commandments out of context. The OT is full of examples where the Law (given by god, and of which the 10 commandments are only part) requires people to be killed for various violations of the Law (adultery, being disrespectful to your parents, not respecting the sabbath, etc.)

Mageth

Again my "Religion as a tool," theory comes into play here. Slavers took people from Africa because their was a so called "market" for slaves because the plantations in America needed workers and the owners of plantations were "greedy." They look in the Bible and say, "God says I can do this because it says so in the Bible."

And then when enough people tell themselves this, it is usually the group dynamic and then culture that sustains the "belief"... A lot of Christians, I will also say, were against slavery. If you take the "greed" aspect... the inhumanity of slavers.... then there would have been no real drive for slavery. So religion again does not fuel this aspect in our history.


In the OT, the Israelites are permitted by the Law (given by YHWH) to own slaves. The NT does nothing to rescind this permission - only instructs to treat your slaves nicely, not beat them too much and stuff. So, going strictly by the Bible, the slaveowners were justified in using the Bible in defense of slavery.

The xians who were against slavery used portions of the bible (one might say "taken out of context", in light of the Bible not condemning slavery) to defend their humanitarian belief/ethic that slavery is wrong.

Mageth

A typical person following a religion is not murderous, not filled with irrational anger and aggression towards another group.

A person who is angry and aggressive will try to affiliate with their culturally dominant religion... This person finds a group of like minded individuals. They mold and twist written scriptures to justify their hatred, murder etc.

What do you think would happen if they did not have so much irrational hatred, aggression and murderous intentions?

You get a typical religious person.

Look at xians in America, or even just on this board. Most of them don't go around beating up or killing people, because of their religion or otherwise.

But a large percentage of them believe that those who don't follow their particular magic spell for salvation deserve eternal damnation and suffering. Most of the rest have a bit nicer future in mind for infidels; some sort of separation from god, nonexistence (ie spiritual death), etc.

So I can only conclude that religion allows, even requires, them to have a bit of "murderous intention" towards a large number of people.

ju'iblex

This is just getting ridiculous. Perhaps it was just an English language breakdown or not, the sentence on my end seemed to imply a majority if not all. i apologise if this was not what you meant, but it was not clear in the sentence. This argument is pointless and really isnt going anywhere.