galiel

How often have you seen headlines like:

"Strong Atheists Beat Up Weak Atheists In Show Of Force"

"Atheists Massacre Agnostics in Sectarian Strife"

"Hawking Demolishes British Academy of Arts and Sciences With Wheelchair Suicide Bomb; Strikes Blow for American Scientific Superiority. Brits Vow to 'Defend Newton's Honor'"

"Congress Approves Massive Preemptive Attack on Sweden to prevent Euorpean Takeover of Peace Prize Process"

Misdirection, irrelevance and non causa pro causa fallacy: assumption that correlation equals causation. In contrast, there is abundant empirical data to suggest a strong correlation between the existence of organized religion and the outbreak of violent conflict.

That does not mean that religions necessarily CAUSE wars, but they may certainly make them more likely to occur, provide rationalization that allows them to continue, and provide justification for the atrocities they produce.

There is also an argument to be made for actual causation, but that is not only beside the point, it is also off-topic.

I think the burden is on religions to demonstrate that they *prevent* violent conflict and hate. After all, don't all religions claim to improve human behavior? By their own metric, organized religions are abyssmal failures.

sullster

Perhaps a distinction has to be made concerning wars between differing religions and the use of religion as a motivator in wars which are not directly caused by religious hatreds.

It seems to be true that religion and god are used by all cultures to motivate its soldiers and civilians. Religion is also used to soften the hard realities of war and make the deaths and destruction part of a godly "plan".

Does all the preceeding convict religion as guilty of aiding war? I say it does, in the sense that without religion's affects, war would be harder to prosecute. In the absence of relgion, there could be fewer converts to the goals of a war, which many times are as abstract as religion's other-worldly ideas.

galiel

Organized religion acts as an instigator and enabler of violent conflict in three other crucial aspects:

A) It simplistically divides the world into "us" and "them, "right" and "wrong", "good" and "evil".

B) It removes personal, individual responsibility from its human followers and places it on "God" or "the Gods", in whose name war are fought. Thus, the typical warrior is "just following [God's] orders".

C) It discourages retrospection and encourages, through its rituals and its hierarchical, priesthood-led structure, the unquestioned obedience to authority.

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: galiel ]</p>

diana

Rockin, galiel!

I would just say "What he [galiel] said," but I thought I'd address this comment:

I suspect David's goal is to cast blame on religion.

So you'd absolve religion, ManM?

d

echidna

I think that's why I still have a soft spot for dis-organised religion. (I was raised an Anglican.)

galiel

I try to be careful to always use that distinguishing qualifier "organized" religion in my comments, to make clear that my problem is not with individual supernatural belief, per se. Although I do see individual superstition as a barrier to human progress and the advancement of knowledge, I don't believe it is necessarily incompatible with civil society, tolerance or democracy. Besides, that is fodder for a idfferent thread.

The problem is whenever people relinquish their responsibility to think for themselves and invest it in authority, whether it is called "the Pope" or "the Ten Commandments" or "Lenin" or "Hitler", it's all the same mess. The only difference being that we subsidize church authoritarianism, with its built-in mechanisms for indoctrination, coordination and instigation, on our own soil, and even exempt it from the laws we create to protect individual freedom and equality.

We sow the seeds of totalitarianism within our own garden, and then marvel when we are recruited to fight "Axes of Evil", pay with our taxes for the brainwashing of the most vulnerable through "faith-based initiatives", and authorize the censorship and muzzling of care-providers, blackmailing them into refraining from presenting birthcontrol to starving, overpopulated nations in need.

I am glad for this thread. Ignorance is the friend of organized religion. It is no coincidence that its greatest heyday was called the "Dark Ages". Not enough people dare to shed light on the emptiness of organized religion's claimed moral authority and to speak the truth about the damage and horror it has inflicted upon humanity.

Now, praise God and pass the ammunition...

[ September 25, 2002: Message edited by: galiel ]</p>

Stephen T-B

The great religious wars, such as those fought by the Crusaders and the 30 Years War, generally have other factors to which the religious cause is added in order to lend them respectability. These other factors, as has been mentioned, include the acquisition of territory / wealth / political power, or the supression of a rival power.
Religion is recruited by the warmongers because it allows ordinary people to act on behalf of a “higher” cause, and in that cause to do things from which they would ordinarily shrink.
Religion also has the great virtue of being a tribal badge which unites “Us” and distinguishes “Us” from “Them.”
It’s use in wars which are specifically political or economic, as the Wars of the Roses, the English Civil War, the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean and Vietnam wars, is to do with the heightened superstitious state into which people are drawn when they are faced by great dangers and great uncertainties. Or even little ones. Did you never pray when you lost your car keys? Did you never pray when something awful happened?
It is a human response which comes from deep within our psyche.
Calling on God to bring you victory as you charge through an arrow shower is not so very extraordinary. It doesn't mean your god is warlike; it means you're shit scared.

David M. Payne

No, but the more excuses we eliminate for war, the closer we get to a world where war is truly the last resort for solving the various problems that lead to war. I have dealt with the economic, political and overpopulation problems that engender war two years ago, <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/payne1.html" target="_blank">here.</a> As I said before, at least with the removal of religious rationalization for war, we reach a place where we can confront the other reasons for this barbaric behavior. It's a long road from here to there, but like all journeys of worth, it starts with the first step.

David

PS, also what diana and galiel said.

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: David Payne ]

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: David Payne ]</p>

Tristan Scott

Stephen T-B,

The first world war was started because the principalities protected by the Austrians were backed by traditional religious allies; the Serbs by their Orthodox Xian brothers, the Russians (Allies of France) and the Bosnians by the islamic Turks, (Allies of Germany and Austro-Hungary). In order to get the attention of the protectorate state some Serbs assasinated the heir to the Austrian throne. The Austrians sent reprisal raids into Serbia which were propagandized to enrage the Russians and before anyone could do anything about it both sides and their allies were mobilizing. Neither side realized it, but because of modern technology mobilization could be achieved in days instead of months and war became inevitable. But it was indeed the religious differences between these small Balkan sates that provided the spark for WWI.

Most historians agree that WWI was the actual cause of WWII, so there you have it.

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Tristan Scott ]</p>

Jayhawker Soule

In what way do you find the question meaningful? People and their leaders employ a world view to justify their actions. I would suggest that fundamental to war is xenophobia and nationalism/tribalism. If one could wipe out religion tomorrow, there would be no guarantee of peace the day after.

Edited to add: Given this thread, along with your long running and somewhat related "mass murderer" thread, it almost seems as if you feed off the question. What do you think?

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>