Why I Hate, Hate, Hate Religion!

[Enlighten]

Huh? I have not heard of Catholics and Protestants killing each other since the IRA denounced terrorism and stopped its activities.

I was about to reply to this saying that I wish that these killings were not happening anymore and show a bbc news article as last week following Sundays football the news reported that there had been a murder and it was a catholic man that had been killed for being catholic and supporting Celtic football club, however I cannot find this article anymore, now I am finding this:

Murders Not Linked To Football (from The Herald )

Its funny how I cant find the original bbc news article now.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

...probably because atheism is not a belief system..

Is it a non-belief system?

 

[ChristineES]

Though I think the same thing can be said for Theist and Theism. Theism isn't a belief system. But a Theist can adopt some belief system and can kill in the name of that belief system, but not in the name of Theism.

I have to agree with that- if atheism is simply non-belief in God, then theism would simply be belief in God.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Is it a non-belief system?

It's not a system at all.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You thought nothing through and developed a STUPID and rash conclusion... Muslims hijacked those commercial jets. Muslims crashed into the TT. When is the last time a Hindu or Buddhist did anything of the sort?

I can't recall either of them committing any hijackings recently, but just a few weeks ago, Buddhists were mortaring a hospital and Hindus were using civilians as human shields in Sri Lanka. Does that count?

 

[DallasApple]

I can't recall either of them committing any hijackings recently, but just a few weeks ago, Buddhists were mortaring a hospital and Hindus were using civilians as human shields in Sri Lanka. Does that count?

(shocked face)...

I hide.

Love

Dallas

 

[Andal]

I can't recall either of them committing any hijackings recently, but just a few weeks ago, Buddhists were mortaring a hospital and Hindus were using civilians as human shields in Sri Lanka. Does that count?

Yes it counts. There is an on going civil war between the Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka. Thousands of lives have been lost on both sides. Similar things happen in India between Hindu, Christian, and Muslim extremists.

The issues you often see Hindus and Buddhists fighting over though is on a material level, ie: land, food, materials. It's usually also tied into ethnic identity and not religion. Of course the exception to this would be the Hindu extremists functioning in India.

There are some primary differences though between Hindu/Buddhist violence and Christian/Muslim. Hindus and Buddhists have no interest in evangelizing the entire world or establishing a global umma. Nor do they make a claim on truth that excludes others. The fighting that occurs is usually because of some perceived threat to the community. You won't find Hindus or Buddhists hijacking planes to wage war against the "West" you won't find them doing it even in Sri Lanka.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You won't find Hindus or Buddhists hijacking planes to wage war against the "West" you won't find them doing it even in Sri Lanka.

Maybe not, but the worst terrorist attack in my country's history, the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 185, was committed in the name of another Dharmic religion: Sikhism.

 

[Andal]

Maybe not, but the worst terrorist attack in my country's history, the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 185, was committed in the name of another Dharmic religion: Sikhism.

Wow I didn't know Air India was bombed, that's who I fly with anyway, I'm obviously not aware of this particular situation and while Sikhism is a Dharmic religion, it is not Hinduism or Buddhism. They have their own history of infighting. In fact last time I was in India, there was an all out Sikh war between two factions in Punjab. Perhaps a Sikh is here who can comment on the situations involving violence and their religion.

 

[Oberon]

You are wrong about the Nazism. It was most political, but many were still Christians. The Nazi propaganda had mixed Christianity with a warped Norse/Teutonic myths. Nazism had peverted Norse protective symbols (Swatisfa) and Wagner's opera for their own imperialistic powers and greeds.

It is true that the Nazi's utilized pagan themes for nationalistic purposes. However, the Nazi party was blatantly anti-religious, and often oppressed or at least discouraged active participation in the church. The case in russia was even worse. An excellent study on methods and ideologies in Nazi Germany and Societ Russia is The Totalitarian Party: Party and People in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia by A. L. Unger (Cambridge University Press). More biased, but also more related to the anti-religious sentiments of totalitarian regimes is Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse by Professor Erik von Keuhnelt-Leddihn.

What I am trying to say is that Nazism was religion-less, like atheism, so you can't really blame Hitler of being atheist.

Nazism was not religionless. The state became the religion (which is a form of atheism).

As to Communism of Soviet Union, atheism was just a tool to keep people oppressed.

Again, the state was the religion.

Interestingly enough, Freud's disciples (Jung, Adler, Reich) each found ways to reject his absolute denial of any purpose in life (Freud, in a letter to Marie Bonaparte, wrote “Im Moment, da man nach Sinn und Wert des Lebens fragt,
ist man krank,” and continues “denn beides gibt es ja in objektiver
Weise nicht/(“In the moment in which one asks about the
significance/meaning and value of life, one is sick, because in an
objective sense there is neither [i.e. neither exists]").


The point is that atheistic ideologies are just as capable of destruction and carnage as religious ideologies. More so, actually, but only because these ideologies were coincided with technologies which enabled greater destruction.

Do you blame Christianity for the dropping of two atomic bombs in two Japanese cities?

Although the US is based on Christian values, Christianity did not form an ideological background for a totalitarian government as with the Nazi party and Russia.

And then there were the witch-hunt for Communist sympathisers on American soils. Were they any better than the Soviets?

Yes. Far, far, far, less death and destruction inhouse.



No, on both account. US being a largely Christian in outlook, but many of politics behind it had nothing to do with religion.

 

[dogsgod]

And yet the leader of the Nazi Party was a staunch Christian.

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people."




-Adolf Hitler, in a speech on 12 April 1922 (Norman H. Baynes, ed. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, April 1922-August 1939, Vol. 1 of 2, pp. 19-20, Oxford University Press, 1942)
​

 

[Don Penguinoini]

I can't recall either of them committing any hijackings recently, but just a few weeks ago, Buddhists were mortaring a hospital and Hindus were using civilians as human shields in Sri Lanka. Does that count?

I did not mean recently, I was reffering to the specific incidents the OP reffered to. Yes, it does count. But when it is done by these two religions (especially these two) it is normally a small thing. It wouldn't go outside a city. In extreme cases it may be country-wide (India), but that sort of violence never hurts the West, or any other countries. When they do fight, it is normally over basic neccesities. Not over the spreading of religion.

It does not however, make it right.

 

[Storm]

And yet the leader of the Nazi Party was a staunch Christian.

So he claimed, but actions speak louder than words.

 

[dogsgod]

So he claimed, but actions speak louder than words.

The no true Scotsman fallacy.


No true Scotsman, or the self-sealing fallacy, is a logical fallacy where the meaning of a term is ad hoc redefined to make a desired assertion about it true.
It was advanced by philosopher Antony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking – or do I sincerely want to be right?.

Fallacy

Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."

—Antony Flew, Thinking about Thinking (1975) wiki
​

 

[Storm]

The no true Scotsman fallacy.

Not really.
1) It was to Hitler's political advantage to claim to be Christian,
2) Paganism/ occultism was also deeply entrenched in Nazi culture, and
3) It doesn't really matter what Hitler believed, since he was a f***ing lunatic.

 

[dogsgod]

Not really.
1) It was to Hitler's political advantage to claim to be Christian,
2) Paganism/ occultism was also deeply entrenched in Nazi culture, and
3) It doesn't really matter what Hitler believed, since he was a f***ing lunatic.

He drew Christian beliefs to their ultimate conclusions by putting his fight to the Jews for killing his God, and that's why we call him a lunatic.

 

[Storm]

He drew Christian beliefs to their ultimate conclusions by putting his fight to the Jews for killing his God, and that's why we call him a lunatic.

Bull. Christ taught a beautiful path of love and tolerance.

 

[dogsgod]

Bull. Christ taught a beautiful path of love and tolerance.

Regardless, Jews have been persecuted by Christians because of this anti-Jewish story.


When Pilate saw that he could not prevail at all, but rather that a tumult was rising, he took water and washed his hands and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this Just person. You see to it.” And all the people answered and said, “His blood be upon us and on our children.” (Matthew 27:24–25)

 

[Storm]

In defiance of the teachings of Christ, on which the religion is founded.

 

[dogsgod]

In defiance of the teachings of Christ, on which the religion is founded.

We can fool ourselves and pretend that Christianity is founded on Jesus' teachings, but let's face it, Christianity revolves about the story as told in the gospels, particularly the crucifixion.