Religions and Criticism

[Jupiter551]

...

OT, but your sig always reminds me of one of my favourite films - Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

 

[Wabi_Sabi]

No, those sad regimes had de facto religions too... Personality Cults. There was a reason there were statues all over the place of Stalin and Mao. And today, North Korea... the last three leaders built up their images as one would a god.

Saying they were religious is a bit of leap to me but each to their own, egotistical nutters maybe. It becomes a bit of a no true Scotsman fallacy on both sides - true believers don't bear bad fruit and atheist mass murderers were religious as they loved themselves & inspired others to horrendous things.

Right, I'll accept your figures for the sake of the discussion, but 123 wars in the name of religion - and how many in the name of atheism? Or are you saying that the number of wars, and millions of deaths, in the name of religion should be tallied up against all conflicts and regimes that weren't directly in the name of religion?

That's like saying The Beatles weren't such a successful pop group because look at all the times they DIDN'T have the number one single over the last 50 years.

In millions of deaths, human suffering and abuses atheism doesn't have a great record over the past 100 years or so. Not so much in declarations of war I'll grant you but in the case of Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge the elimination of religion in the name of atheism runs into millions of deaths, if not tens of millions and beyond. The overall death toll of atheist regimes on it's own people this century is comfortably over the 100 million mark.

Apologies if this comes off as atheist bashing, it's really not my intention. Just trying to provide some perspective that it's not always the case that the religious crazies are making life so unbearable for the tolerant and peace loving atheists.

 

[Jupiter551]

In millions of deaths, human suffering and abuses atheism doesn't have a great record over the past 100 years or so. Not so much in declarations of war I'll grant you but in the case of Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge the elimination of religion in the name of atheism runs into millions of deaths, if not tens of millions and beyond. The overall death toll of atheist regimes on it's own people this century is comfortably over the 100 million mark.

Apologies if this comes off as atheist bashing, it's really not my intention. Just trying to provide some perspective that it's not always the case that the religious crazies are making life so unbearable for the tolerant and peace loving atheists.

Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge were motivated by atheism? Seriously? They may have repressed or outlawed religion as part of their regime, but it was part of a broader ideological platform.

If you want to argue that they count because the leaders or administration professed atheism, then every war started by someone with any religious belief, or that involved any nation that incorporated religion at all into their system (ie every war participated by the United States) must also count on the side of religious war.

I don't believe that, I believe only the wars directly in the name of this or that religion should be counted as religious wars, and the same goes for 'atheist wars' of which, to my knowledge, there have been none.

The point I'm trying to make is that religiously motivated conflicts - including crusades, jihads, some terrorism etc - can be directly said to have religious differences as their outward motivating factor. The regimes you named had various motivations - communism, socialism, nationalism, ethnic cleansing - but none of them could conceivably be attributed (not even superficially) to ATHEISM.

 

[Mirra]

In millions of deaths, human suffering and abuses atheism doesn't have a great record over the past 100 years or so. Not so much in declarations of war I'll grant you but in the case of Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge the elimination of religion in the name of atheism runs into millions of deaths, if not tens of millions and beyond. The overall death toll of atheist regimes on it's own people this century is comfortably over the 100 million mark.

Do you know why eliminating religion in the people they sought to control was so important?

No, those sad regimes had de facto religions too... Personality Cults. There was a reason there were statues all over the place of Stalin and Mao. And today, North Korea... the last three leaders built up their images as one would a god.

How could they possibly have the complete and utter control they required if people could hold on to the idea of hope and power from some god? They had to become the gods in order to centralize ALL power not just government power. I'm sorry but attributing their acts to atheism doesn't seem quite fair.

This also touches on why I feel separation of church and state is more important than many people tend to realize. It's not about professing ones faith or not. It's about preventing a government entity the ability to declare that something must be done in the name of some deity and to prevent the church entity from becoming the government. Elimination of church is bad. Separation of it from politics is good.

 

[Red7227]

In millions of deaths, human suffering and abuses atheism doesn't have a great record over the past 100 years or so. Not so much in declarations of war I'll grant you but in the case of Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge the elimination of religion in the name of atheism runs into millions of deaths, if not tens of millions and beyond. The overall death toll of atheist regimes on it's own people this century is comfortably over the 100 million mark.

Apologies if this comes off as atheist bashing, it's really not my intention. Just trying to provide some perspective that it's not always the case that the religious crazies are making life so unbearable for the tolerant and peace loving atheists.

The intellectuals like Marx and Engels who who saw religion as another way that the masses were oppressed was one thing. Taking a good idea and having it executed by douche bags like Pol Pot or Stalin and you are going to have a frighteningly large death toll. Not because the concept is wrong, but because of the individuals responsible. To a great extent religion has the same issue. the message is often fine, but the execution is monstrous.

 

[Paulie Walnuts]

From the grade of 3-8, I went to a "christian school".
Until I was about 16, I was taken with family to church, over the years several denominations from Baptists, Wesleyan Methodists to nazarines. From 16 to maybe 28ish, I was a free roaming xtian zealot soaking in scripture.

Then I realized one day, all religions are nothing but snake pits. You're much happier when you tell god to fuck off and let yourself be a human and enjoy your flaws instead of trying endlessly to seek forgiveness for some imaginary sinful nature they all tell you that you are cursed with.

Snake pits. Don't fall in one, no matter how kind and sweet the snakes seem. They all bite, and they are all poisonous.

No, nobody ever abused me, touched me in a bad place or tried to break my mind. They did far worse.
They lied to me.
They lied to me and kept trying to evade my perfectly valid questions with illogical circular arguments and speculation.

"If it doesn't make sense it probably isn't true." Should be the only line in the any scripture right under the many variations of the golden rule.
All the rest is snake shit at the bottom of the snake pit.

 

[Nordling]

In millions of deaths, human suffering and abuses atheism doesn't have a great record over the past 100 years or so. Not so much in declarations of war I'll grant you but in the case of Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge the elimination of religion in the name of atheism runs into millions of deaths, if not tens of millions and beyond. The overall death toll of atheist regimes on it's own people this century is comfortably over the 100 million mark.

Do you know why eliminating religion in the people they sought to control was so important?

No, those sad regimes had de facto religions too... Personality Cults. There was a reason there were statues all over the place of Stalin and Mao. And today, North Korea... the last three leaders built up their images as one would a god.

How could they possibly have the complete and utter control they required if people could hold on to the idea of hope and power from some god? They had to become the gods in order to centralize ALL power not just government power. I'm sorry but attributing their acts to atheism doesn't seem quite fair.

This also touches on why I feel separation of church and state is more important than many people tend to realize. It's not about professing ones faith or not. It's about preventing a government entity the ability to declare that something must be done in the name of some deity and to prevent the church entity from becoming the government. Elimination of church is bad. Separation of it from politics is good.

My thoughts exactly. Where a group or nation may say, "kill the 'enemy' in the name of [their favorite deity], we never hear of self-proclaimed atheist monsters like Stalin say, "kill the enemy in the name of "no God!" Leaders like Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot simply didn't want any competition...and really, unless we're mind readers, we don't even know what was going on inside their psychotic minds.

 

[LadyLuna]

I think people tend to be the most defensive about their religion when they have the most doubts about it, and when they depend on it for something.

i re-explored christianity in all it many colored coats. catholicism ended up being my favorite because of the pomp and ceremony. baptist and evangelical my least favorite because of the hatred and anger they spew as a group. around here you cant go to a baptist church and not hear more about what other people are doing wrong than what you should do right.

i also found that as a whole christians are more likely as a group to reach out and help strangers than other religions locally. its supposedly true in most of the western world. dunno havent been there myself lol. ut down here in the south for every state run or secular charity, theres probably 3 or 4 that are run by a church. in all my years as a wiccan i never personally found one in my region that lasted more than a year or so that was run by a wiccan coven. (and yes thats largely because wicca is done in smaller groups than the average church)

I find these to be very accurate observations. In my experience, the pagans I've known would help when and how they could, but they were often frustrated by the lack of group effort, and the fact that they weren't really welcome to join in with the Christian effort.

If I were to have one wish, it would be that those Christian groups welcome any and all who wish to help, regardless of what religion they are or aren't. (briefly imagines the idea of a captain planet where the powers aren't different aspects of nature, but rather different beliefs)

 

[camstory]

I think people tend to be the most defensive about their religion when they have the most doubts about it, and when they depend on it for something.

Yes, very often the case. It is much like the recovering drug addict who has a passionate hatred for anyone who might be a user. They feel their weakness, and in defence put up an unwarranted offensive counter attack. - my enemy does not seem so (awful, illogical, dangerous, different, etc...) I must hate him for fear I might love him.

 

[Jupiter551]

If I were to have one wish, it would be that those Christian groups welcome any and all who wish to help, regardless of what religion they are or aren't. (briefly imagines the idea of a captain planet where the powers aren't different aspects of nature, but rather different beliefs)

I agree completely, if I were ever to consider myself a believer this is where Buddhism really impressed me. Unlike Islam and Christianity, who just say you're wrong and going to hell, Buddhism considers jesus, mohammed, abraham, buddha, etc to simply be different faces of the divine, presented in different guises and eras to allow different cultural audiences to relate to them.

It seems terribly arrogant and narrow minded to think that there is an all powerful god, and he sent his messenger/prophet/sun to talk to a tiny group of people *only to believe in him*.

 

[Just Me]

Oh, Mirra, if you think you've set yourself up, I may be just about to ostracize myself from the forum. That's facetious. Most people here are open-minded enough not to take things too personally as has been demonstrated in the responses to your OP.

As you may or may not have noticed (I see a few new faces here), I was absent from ACF for a couple of months. In that time, I have deleted my MFC account. Why? Well that is a multi-tiered answer.

I am a Christian. There, I said it. Yeah, I believe the book of fairy tales. I felt it was wrong for me to frequent MFC. I don't judge others. I have done many bad things in my life, much worse than visiting a website. Therefore I have no grounds for placing judgement on others.

Now, you're thinking, with this recent "revelation" why I am I still an active ACF member? Well, you know, I've developed some relationships here. Now, how would that reflect upon me and what I propose to stand for if I abandoned people just because I had an epiphany?

Religious zealots, or zealots of any kind for that matter, give everyone with whom they associate with a black eye. In the secular world, environmentalists and PETA come to mind. The kooks give all associated a bad name.

For those that don't want to hear anything pertaining to religion, I am reminded of something that noted atheist Penn Gillette (of Penn and Teller) said. And I paraphrase here, but the idea is genuinely his. He said that he never minds when someone tries to tell him about their religion because those that don't he wonders why they would hate him so much that they would not tell him how to avoid hell. He also points out that this does not apply to someone screaming in his face about his eternal damnation, but rather brought up in intelligent conversation.

Now, I should probably put in the obligatory "my $0.02" smiley. But I feel it's worth at least a nickel. Someone send me a token, bb's.

Since you quoted Penn Gillette, I thought this video would be appropriate.

 

[Nordling]

I always enjoy listening to Penn. He makes us think, while bringing up ideas that we don't hear every day. But we have to remember, he's speaking from the point of view of a libertarian, atheist skeptic...none of which are bad, btw, but it's a particular point of view, and even within each of those categories, Penn speaks from his OWN take on each of them.

He repeated often that "these are all good people" etc. Like we can compare Obama and Michele Bachman and say, "oh, yeah, same person." This is nonsense. What I believe sane theists do is compartmentalize their faith and their secular life; when one conflicts with the other, they make a pragmatic choice. If Bachman is to be viewed from her activities, this compartmentalizing doesn't happen with her--her superstitions are strangely intermingled with her secular activities. She's batshit crazy. Prove me wrong.

 

[Jupiter551]

 

[Paulie Walnuts]

People have to try to prove the world is flat, so they can sleep at night. They are so frightened of falling off the edge that some other person did a good job of convincing them is there, and is a real danger, so they must make sure everyone else believes it too.

Because ya know, if most people believe something, it must be true. :lol:

The best line anyone ever laid on me to try to make me believe was
"If you understood it, you'd believe it."

Well, I understand all about Santa Claus and ya know, I don't believe that story either.
(where's yer god now eh?)

 

[camstory]

Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God.

 

[bob]

for me, freedom of expression trumps religion

it strikes me that what happens when the zealots get all bent out of shape because some weirdo insults their god, their prophet, or their beliefs is nothing but insecurity....the kind that borders on the examples of SO jealousy that are on this forum.

any god worth it's salt can deal with the idea of free will without trying to kill it.....if it can't, it sure wasn't a god responsible for creating this place :lol:

 

[sweetiebatman]

THIS!
I know its over 6 mins long but it is well worth watching

 

[SweepTheLeg]

I'll leave this here.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion

 

[sweetiebatman]

I posted that a bit ago! :thumbleft:

But it is absolutely epic!

 

[SweepTheLeg]

I don't think the image was showing up on my screen so I didn't know you posted it. my apologies, but yes it is full of epic proportions.

 

[Jupiter551]

 

[Mirra]

The last religion I associated with (I'm actually not sure what I'd claim at the moment) isn't included on your flow chart.

 

[HarmlessSquirrel]

I'll leave this here.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/religion

Yes, that is epic! As is the flowchart. For no good reason except that it amused me (which means it gets 11 out of 10 stars in my book), I'll reference the following: Sometime in December last year, a billboard near the Lincoln Tunnel on the way into NYC said "Reason's Greetings."

 

[camstory]

As I come closer to the end of my life, and see family members and public figures who were adults as I grew up pass on, I find myself inevitably facing my own mortality. I wish I could find a way to gain some true faith in something beyond. It would be convenient and comforting, but I have fallen too deeply in love with truth and honesty to myself for that to ever to be possible. I am afraid we have this life and that is it. It is best we learn to love deeply and without regard as best we can, as early as possible, because love is the essence of human life.

 

[LadyLuna]

As I come closer to the end of my life, and see family members and public figures who were adults as I grew up pass on, I find myself inevitably facing my own mortality. I wish I could find a way to gain some true faith in something beyond. It would be convenient and comforting, but I have fallen too deeply in love with truth and honesty to myself for that to ever to be possible. I am afraid we have this life and that is it. It is best we learn to love deeply and without regard as best we can, as early as possible, because love is the essence of human life.

By my beliefs, if there is a next life, then you've earned your way into heaven just from following that last bit

 

[Bocefish]

Death threats, petitions swirl online after anti-Islam filmmaker’s identity is revealed...

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/17/death ... z26kkoAhb3

“Insallah [God willing], we will kill him,” one Facebook user, Shayan Khan, wrote from Karachi, Pakistan.

Some YouTube users envisioned particularly imaginative demises for Nakoula in the comments section of a video related to his detention.

“I wanna torture him with a shot [to] his knee cap, then blow his eyes with [a] knife, take a chain saw and cut his penis, then a hot rod would be given to his ass, then kill him until he is hanged till death,” funkyfolk1110 wrote. “Kill this bastard,” said another user.

On Twitter, a user named Yayan E. Putra posted, “Fuck Nakoula Basseley, i want to kill you!!!” The message starkly contrasted with Putra’s brief Twitter profile, which stated simply, “A smile is the little thing that can make life easier.”

“Someone please kill him,” agreed Nelson Davis, a retired market researcher living in New York, who earlier on Sunday invited his Twitter followers to “Choose your free Obama sticker!”

A Fatwa has been issued by leaders for the death of anyone involved in making the movie...

Islam is the religion of peace? And what about Sharia Law where Islamics stone to death thousands of women every year...

 

[SweepTheLeg]

No religion is the religion of peace.

 

[Jupiter551]

heh those facebook and twitter comments...it's like basics got religion and got pissed.

 

[LadyLuna]

No religion is the religion of peace.

Most of the big religions today, the actual religion is about peace, but the people who profess it are not. Which makes me sad.

 

[Red7227]

No religion is the religion of peace.

Most of the big religions today, the actual religion is about peace, but the people who profess it are not. Which makes me sad.

Islam isn't. It has the realm of peace, which is where everyone is Muslim or one of the "people of the book" - Jewish, Christian or Zoroaster - and the realm of war, which is everywhere else.

This girl lived in Kurdish Iraq, she was stoned to death because she wanted to date a boy from a different muslim sect. While police watch she is dragged out of her home and stoned to death. Someone decided to pull her pants off in the process, so the last thing you see is this girl, battered and blinded by rocks hitting her face, trying to cover herself while men continue to stone her.