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On most days, I think people should allow to worship however they want. And then there are days when my government quote the Bible to support laws that are othe

On most days, I think people should allow to worship however they want. And then there are days when my government quote the Bible to support laws that are otherwise indefensible.

falcrist 8y ago
It's true that religion has engendered a great deal of evil throughout history. It seems like almost every major atrocity has been religiously motivated in some way. However, if you look at Georgia for example, you'll see that suppressing religion doesn't do much. Even if you took the harshest anti-theist position, you'd have to admit that people simply need to choose to stop being religious. It's difficult or even impossible to force the issue. So even if you dislike religion, the answer is still a secular society with freedom of religion and a healthy religious tolerance.
- denverkarma 8y ago
  Don’t gloss over all the atrocities committed by the Soviets and Chinese in the name of aetheism. Evil people will harness whatever philosophy is convenient to justify their actions.
  - cfadvan 8y ago
    They didn’t commit them in the name of atheism, they committed them in the name of economic and social revolutions of which atheism played a relatively small part compared to communist ideology. By comparison with “in the name of god” there is no honest comparison. @Jumpcrisscross: One can make similar arguments for the Crusades. Then why not make that argument? Remember to put “Deus Vult” in that context. Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well. “Pretty much” is doing yeoman’s work there, bravo. I like how it also glosses over the fact that most of what happened was anti-money, anti-status, and anti-intellectual.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      > They didn’t commit them in the name of atheism, Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well. This comment is so incredibly naive.
  - trentnix 8y ago
    Gloss over? The parent poster buried it in concrete! The Soviets and Chinese killed more than everyone before them, combined. And you are 100% spot on - evil will use and abuse anything in pursuit of its goals. But those people that we clearly identify as evil - they were utterly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, whether it was Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or the terrorists of the 21st century.
  - falcrist 8y ago
    Were they not also religiously motivated? Stalin himself was educated at a theological seminary. You should also be aware that Stalin drew upon the ideas of divine right that previous monarchs of Russia had used to claim authority. He used the Russian Orthodox church to grant himself legitimacy, and that church never left his side even through all of the atrocities. To this day, they create iconography of Stalin (typically with a halo). Either way, this is decidedly NOT secularism. I certainly didn't "gloss over" anything, having given approximately equal time to talking about religion and the suppression thereof. That's entirely unfair, by the way, since it's hard to find examples of the latter, while history is replete with examples of the former.
- AuthorizedCust 8y ago
  > religion has engendered a great deal of evil throughout history It's more accurate to say religion was misused by many leaders hungry for power, fame, or treasure.
  - falcrist 8y ago
    I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. When the books your religion is drawing from glorify murder, subjugation, genocide, etc it's hardly a misuse of that religion to encourage or commit the same.
- ekianjo 8y ago
  > It seems like almost every major atrocity has been religiously motivated in some way. You seem to forget that what Stalin and Mao did in their respective countries, leading to the direct death of probably in the area of 50 to 100 millions people if not more, was completely anti-religious and can be pretty much considered as the greatest atrocity in History EVER. So, no, religion is probably not the root of all evil.
  - Retric 8y ago
    It's not hard to argue that Communism was a religion as it held all the trappings of such.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Of course not. A religion is something you choose to believe in. Communism did you give you any choice. It events prevents its own citizens to leave.
      - Retric 8y ago
        Many religions have sponsored wars of conquest and forceful indoctrination. The choice of belief in Communism or [this space intentionally left blank] was still up to the individual, though youthful indoctrination has been shown to be generally effective throughout history.
        ekianjo 8y ago
        > The choice of belief in Communism or [this space intentionally left blank] was still up to the individual That is a fake choice, since any hint of criticism led you straight to the Gulag. There's enough books about the period to check what actually happened in Russia and China.
        Retric 8y ago
        Criticizing religion has often risked death or imprisonment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition is perhaps the most well known due to the use of torture. In theory they limited themselves to the baptized, but as baptism occurred so young that's a meaningless distinction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim is interesting as it's a category of forced conversion, but makes no mention of what they where forced to Catholic/Islam/whatever. When communism outlawed other religions it was doing the same thing as occurred in many other times and places.
whatshisface 8y ago
The downside of letting people think whatever they want is that sometimes they will think something that you are strongly opposed to.
denverkarma 8y ago
The irony is that there’s nothing more offensive to an observing Christian than when politicians try to quote the Bible. They don’t believe it, they misquote it and take things out of context all the time. The second most offense thing is how many people who claim to be “enlightened and tolerant” liberals are openly hateful and bigoted toward Christianity.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > The irony is that there’s nothing more offensive to an observing Christian than when politicians try to quote the Bible The electoral record of Bible-quoting politicians amongst religious voters would appear to contradict your point.
  - kelukelugames 8y ago
    Thank you for calling out the no true scot's man fallacy.
- markc 8y ago
  The irony is someone intolerant of "liberals" whining about their intolerance of his intolerance.

On most days, I think people should allow to worship however they want. And then there are days when my government quote the Bible to support laws that are otherwise indefensible.

falcrist 8y ago

It's true that religion has engendered a great deal of evil throughout history. It seems like almost every major atrocity has been religiously motivated in some way. However, if you look at Georgia for example, you'll see that suppressing religion doesn't do much. Even if you took the harshest anti-theist position, you'd have to admit that people simply need to choose to stop being religious. It's difficult or even impossible to force the issue. So even if you dislike religion, the answer is still a secular society with freedom of religion and a healthy religious tolerance.

denverkarma 8y ago
Don’t gloss over all the atrocities committed by the Soviets and Chinese in the name of aetheism. Evil people will harness whatever philosophy is convenient to justify their actions.
- cfadvan 8y ago
  They didn’t commit them in the name of atheism, they committed them in the name of economic and social revolutions of which atheism played a relatively small part compared to communist ideology. By comparison with “in the name of god” there is no honest comparison. @Jumpcrisscross: One can make similar arguments for the Crusades. Then why not make that argument? Remember to put “Deus Vult” in that context. Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well. “Pretty much” is doing yeoman’s work there, bravo. I like how it also glosses over the fact that most of what happened was anti-money, anti-status, and anti-intellectual.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > They didn’t commit them in the name of atheism, Of course they did since the pretty much first they did was to imprison in concentration camps the clergy, and destroy all religious buildings as well. This comment is so incredibly naive.
- trentnix 8y ago
  Gloss over? The parent poster buried it in concrete! The Soviets and Chinese killed more than everyone before them, combined. And you are 100% spot on - evil will use and abuse anything in pursuit of its goals. But those people that we clearly identify as evil - they were utterly convinced of the righteousness of their actions, whether it was Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, or the terrorists of the 21st century.
- falcrist 8y ago
  Were they not also religiously motivated? Stalin himself was educated at a theological seminary. You should also be aware that Stalin drew upon the ideas of divine right that previous monarchs of Russia had used to claim authority. He used the Russian Orthodox church to grant himself legitimacy, and that church never left his side even through all of the atrocities. To this day, they create iconography of Stalin (typically with a halo). Either way, this is decidedly NOT secularism. I certainly didn't "gloss over" anything, having given approximately equal time to talking about religion and the suppression thereof. That's entirely unfair, by the way, since it's hard to find examples of the latter, while history is replete with examples of the former.
AuthorizedCust 8y ago
> religion has engendered a great deal of evil throughout history It's more accurate to say religion was misused by many leaders hungry for power, fame, or treasure.
- falcrist 8y ago
  I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. When the books your religion is drawing from glorify murder, subjugation, genocide, etc it's hardly a misuse of that religion to encourage or commit the same.
ekianjo 8y ago
> It seems like almost every major atrocity has been religiously motivated in some way. You seem to forget that what Stalin and Mao did in their respective countries, leading to the direct death of probably in the area of 50 to 100 millions people if not more, was completely anti-religious and can be pretty much considered as the greatest atrocity in History EVER. So, no, religion is probably not the root of all evil.
- Retric 8y ago
  It's not hard to argue that Communism was a religion as it held all the trappings of such.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Of course not. A religion is something you choose to believe in. Communism did you give you any choice. It events prevents its own citizens to leave.
    - Retric 8y ago
      Many religions have sponsored wars of conquest and forceful indoctrination. The choice of belief in Communism or [this space intentionally left blank] was still up to the individual, though youthful indoctrination has been shown to be generally effective throughout history.
      - ekianjo 8y ago
        > The choice of belief in Communism or [this space intentionally left blank] was still up to the individual That is a fake choice, since any hint of criticism led you straight to the Gulag. There's enough books about the period to check what actually happened in Russia and China.
        Retric 8y ago
        Criticizing religion has often risked death or imprisonment. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition is perhaps the most well known due to the use of torture. In theory they limited themselves to the baptized, but as baptism occurred so young that's a meaningless distinction. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim is interesting as it's a category of forced conversion, but makes no mention of what they where forced to Catholic/Islam/whatever. When communism outlawed other religions it was doing the same thing as occurred in many other times and places.

whatshisface 8y ago

The downside of letting people think whatever they want is that sometimes they will think something that you are strongly opposed to.

denverkarma 8y ago

The irony is that there’s nothing more offensive to an observing Christian than when politicians try to quote the Bible. They don’t believe it, they misquote it and take things out of context all the time. The second most offense thing is how many people who claim to be “enlightened and tolerant” liberals are openly hateful and bigoted toward Christianity.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> The irony is that there’s nothing more offensive to an observing Christian than when politicians try to quote the Bible The electoral record of Bible-quoting politicians amongst religious voters would appear to contradict your point.
- kelukelugames 8y ago
  Thank you for calling out the no true scot's man fallacy.
markc 8y ago
The irony is someone intolerant of "liberals" whining about their intolerance of his intolerance.