I always feel a little uncomfortable in a thread that gets religious, let alone one that starts that way. Nevertheless, here we are. Personally, I think that religious ledgends, or mythology, or whatever, tends to be pig poo-poo except for their anthropological significance. So I have some trouble, given my predisposition, to discount arguments to the contrary.
That given, I suggest that only a small minority of any given "public" population is atheist, & that historical tyrants have made use of the more common group belief.
So, no. Atheism ain't got nuthin' (or at least nuthin' substantial) to do with tyranny. Rather the contrary. Ask Galilieo Galllilei.
Prof
Originally Posted by Prof
Very well said!
To add onto that, the reason for this is due to the fact that there is no holy book of atheism with fairy tales that puts specific people into power, and or justifies mass killing.
This also means that there is no holy book of Atheism to stop people from being tyrants.
I think power hungry tyrants were responsible for the tyrants of the 20th century.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
For every Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler, there's always millions of people willing to do their bidding then say "he told me to" afterward.
Hey man, I was just following orders...
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Of course.
-dale
Yeah, just count the bodies, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of population.
Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot are in a league of their own. Hitler comes in a close 2nd.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
I think it is about as fair a criticism as saying religion is responsible for wars and tyranny. Which is to say one has little to do with the other. Wars are fought for power, and while sometimes the lines between religion and political power have been blurred in the past, after 1648 and the advent of the nation-state it has become mostly a moot point.
Dawkins may be a very good evolutionary biologist but he knows next to nothing about history, let alone theology. In these debates did they mention the Warring States Period in ancient China, or Spring and Autumn Period? A lot of wars were fought during these time frames, and how much impact did religious belief play in determining who would fight whom; I suspect next to none.
I am not aware of any modern-day religion that advocates for mass murder of innocents in any way. There was the Thuggee cult in the nineteenth century, but that was short-lived, and may not have even existed. 9/11 had little to do with religion but more to do with US power projection in the Middle East. Also while the Inquisition was an unfortunate period the death toll was probably overrated (one historian estimated that only 2,000 were actually executed over 160 years).
As for Hitler, in the end it doesn't really matter if he professed religious belief or not since he acted against the known dictates of his professed religion; and the war, and Holocaust were never framed in terms of religion but in terms of ethnicity (Jew, Slav, Frank, Aryan etc.) and geography (lebensraum), and really it was all about power.
so the conensus seems to be that its not a fair charge to make..
Hitchens did come up with a good quote
'left to their own devices, good people will do good things and evil people will do evil things. If you want a good person to do an evil thing, then you need religion'
I think what needs to happen here isn't pinning this thing so much on individual tyrants as looking at the cumulative damage of religion. Pogroms galore. Conquistadores marching about. Crusaders and Saladins doin' their thing. I'm sure that both Mao and Iosef have their special seats at Satan's dinner table but I'm not certain that more than a few popes, mullahs, and other religious notables, etc. might be seated at the table as well.
Dunno and don't care as I subscribe to the notion of killing them all and letting God sort them out...
Oh! And better livin' through modern chemistry, of course...)
"This aggression will not stand, man!"
Jeff Lebowski
I guess the reverse question is 'Is religion responsible for crimes done in its name?'
Some people will say that 9/11 was committed because of American or Israeli policy and not religion, but I find that hard to believe.
On the Christian side, the Lords resistance Army is one of the most brutal organisations in the world, and they have purely religious goals.
You might say that Palestine and Israel is more about land, but the problem would be far less intractable it weren't for religion.
Why? Because they used suicide pilots? That doesn't have a long tradition in secular societies...oh wait it does; kamikazes dying for the Emperor of Japan in WWII, the secular (and leftist) Tamil Tigers also were the one terrorist group responsible for the most suicide bombings. Even Palestinian resistance to Israel was originally framed in secular, Marxist, terms; Abu Nidal, Black September, etc.
Even if religion and Islam did not exist but everything else remained constant in the world I think you would still have Arab anger at US and Israeli policy over occupying Arabic land, which could inevitably lead to 9/11. People are much more willing to die for Queen and Country, or communism, or even capitalism (vested economic interests) then they are for religion.
Do they? I wasn't aware that witchcraft and animism were a part of the Christian tradition. The LRA is more a case of a cult of personality then completely in-line with Christian beliefs.On the Christian side, the Lords resistance Army is one of the most brutal organisations in the world, and they have purely religious goals.
Substitute religion for nationalism and you are a bit closer. There are Christian Palestinians (Arafat married one), and Arabic Jews.You might say that Palestine and Israel is more about land, but the problem would be far less intractable it weren't for religion.
You left out the biggie - Fatah, very much a secular left wing 'liberation' movement. Islamists came quite late to the party, but they brought with them something that the left wing movements no longer had - a revolutionary narrative & the zeal to back it up. Modern Islamist movements look as much like C20th communist revolutionary movements as they do anything else.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
The Japanese did it for religion also - their emperor was also their God.
The Tamils believed that by becoming a 'martyr' they would secure a special place in paradise.
The Islamists in both Israel and New York believe that they get 72 virgins as a reward, and the women believe they get an exhaulted place in the afterlife.
I find it difficult to believe that most individuals would see these actions through if it wasn't for this perceived incentive.
The LRAs main objective is to impose an old testament style theocracy upon central Africa. I don't think the animism, witchcraft stuff really matters that much. At core its a Christian movement, albeit with some excentricites.
Zara,
A couple of points.
Motivation is often complex & rarely unidimensional. To many Japanese Emperor & nation were indivisible in a way that church & state were once indivisible in Christian societies. Likewise for many involved in organizing 'liberation' movements there was no clear distinction between their style of socialism & their nationalism. People may use extreme ideas to mentall cross certain lines, but that does not mean these ideas are their sole or even primary motivation.
On the Nazis & religion, be careful of ideologically motivated claims. This actually goes for anything Nazi-related. As they are the poster children for evil, people ignore as many inconvenient facts as necessary to make them fit a convenient definition. In the 60s & 70s in particular the idiot left hurled 'fascist' at pretty much anyone they didn't like. Unfortunately that hobby has now passed to the idiot right (especially in America). Thus it is now commonplace to encounter claims that the Nazis were 'left wing', 'liberals' and 'secular', none of which are true, but all of which suit the ends of those hurling the abuse.
On the nazis I'll give a very brief summary of how they related to religion. The active membership broke into roughly 3 factions:
The largest were practising Christians, though these tended to dominate middle & lower ranks. The highest ranked was the relatively powerful Gaulieter of East Prussia (I think). There were others at similar levels.
The next group were from a new sort of Nazi-compatible Christianity which had various forms such as 'german Chritianity' or 'positive Christianity'. This was an attempt to make christianity compatible with nazi ideas & might, had Hitler succeeded, ended up as the official state religion.
The smallest group among the Nazis is the one most often highlighted, partly because it was the strangest, partly because it fitted the 'nazis as persecutors of Christianity' narrative. They were genuine pagans. While small in number, they did include a number of the most senior nazis.
Hitler's status remains unclear the further you move into the Nazi period, though there are hints that he continued to consider himself some manner of christian.
Be wary of people who use persecution of Christian churches as proof the nazis were 'anti-Christian'. The nazis were anti-competition, and churches had the potential to be powerful competitors. They could also be allies. Many more German clergy were supporters of Nazism than critics. Tiso, the administrator of the Nazi puppet state in Slovakia was an ordained priest. In Croatia the Catholic Church started out as an active supporter of Pavelic. many of its clery remained so until the end, and escpaed justice via the Vatican.
I'll leave you with a snip from Wiki quoting a book that is well worth a read:
In his study The Holy Reich, the historian Richard Steigmann-Gall comes to the controversial conclusion that "Christianity, in the final analysis, did not constitute a barrier to Nazism."[6] Furthermore, he comments on the reason why Nazism is quite often seen as the opposite of Christianity:
"What we suppose Nazism must surely have been about usually tells us as much about contemporary societies as about the past purportedly under review. The insistence that Nazism was an anti-Christian movement has been one of the most enduring truisms of the past fifty years. ... Exploring the possibility that many Nazis regarded themselves as Christian would have decisively undermined the myths of the Cold War and the regeneration of the German nation ... Nearly all Western societies retain a sense of Christian identity to this day. ... That Nazism as the world-historical metaphor for human evil and wickedness should in some way have been related to Christianity can therefore be regarded by many only as unthinkable."[7]
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
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