Is atheism responsible for war and genocide?

Started by Jagella, May 19, 2019, 09:57:26 AM

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Jagella

Quote from: Mike Cl on May 19, 2019, 01:26:55 PM
A stray thought.  Since everyone knows that the US is a Christian nation (conservatives do insist!), and we all know that christianity is a peace loving religion, why is it that the US has been involved in close to 120 armed conflicts in it's roughly 240 years of existence?  We have been at war (or armed conflict) for 222 of those years.  Maybe christians  did not invent Newspeak, but they have always been masters of it.

Much of what you're asking here can be answered by studying Manifest Destiny. According to Wikipedia:

QuoteHistorian William E. Weeks has noted that three key themes were usually touched upon by advocates of manifest destiny:


  • the virtue of the American people and their institutions;
  • the mission to spread these institutions, thereby redeeming and remaking the world in the image of the United States;
  • the destiny under God to do this work.

So we can see that the warlike nature of America has a basis in its theism.

Baruch

#16
Which American theism?  What is the underlying emotion of Manifest Destiny?  I am American.  The story of colonial America, and the founding of the Republic is full of genuine conspiracy (before, during and after the Constitutional Convention).  The English colonization was partly led by secular utopians like Francis Bacon.  The English colonies here were to be the New Atlantis (a book by Francis Bacon).  This was much discussed in private (so evidence shows) at the time of the founding of the Roanoke and Jamestown colonies.  And then there was the Reformation and Civil War in Britain at that time, leading exiled religious extremists to found theocratic utopias in New England.  So the underlying theology of the US civil society, is that all public religion (Jeffersonian) is to be Freemasonic (the New Atlantis) in dialectic with private religion (the New Israel).  They share pseudo-jewish symbol systems.  Jefferson was a revolutionary progressive (in spite of being a slave owner like Washington) who expected the New Israel to die out once the Church was disestablished (it was established in the individual colonies, Maryland for instance was for Catholics, Pennsylvania for Quakers).  Part of the tension between him and John Adams.  The whole point of church-state separation (which entirely comes from Jefferson in the founding of the University of Virginia, not the Constitution) was to create space in which the Church would be allowed wither.  On that point and on others, Jefferson had feet of clay, as a prophet.  Very great men, who were riding a wave of their own time, but could have no idea what 100 years in the future would look like.  The current disagreement between American religious and secular, dates back to the 1600s.
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Shiranu

QuoteChristians are responsible for most of the violence in the world.

I don't know about that one, chief.

A large part of it? Certainly. And is a large part of that in the name of Christianity? Yep. But that's like saying that men are responsible for most of the violence in the world... it's true, but it does leave out ALOT of important details and paints with way too broad of brush.

(And I would argue that "manhood" is just as much a ideology as a Christianity, with just as many (if not more) sects and different interpretations of what it means. )
"A little science distances you from God, but a lot of science brings you nearer to Him." - Louis Pasteur

aitm

Neither Stalin nor Hitler did the killing. The troops did, and I can assure you the vast majority of the troops were some type of Christian.
A humans desire to live is exceeded only by their willingness to die for another. Even god cannot equal this magnificent sacrifice. No god has the right to judge them.-first tenant of the Panotheust

Draconic Aiur

Hitler was a christian who dissed Jesus because Jesus was a Jew. So like in euthenics he want to cut out the Jewish part of Christianity that was the filth  of the religion to him. So saying he was an atheist is bullshit because he did believe in a god but that god was not Jesus but the father of Jesus and Jesus and the iseralites were sin and filthy compared to the "Arayan race" (reason why he hated church which preached the Jewish part of Christianity). He was a fanatic but not an atheist.

Jagella

Quote from: Baruch on May 19, 2019, 01:29:11 PMhe was a Wagnerian pagan.

Hitler was a lot of things and was influenced by a lot of different people. To call him a "pagan Christian influenced by Nietzsche" isn't too much of a stretch.

Jagella

Quote from: Blackleaf on May 19, 2019, 12:54:26 PM
Christians are responsible for most of the violence in the world. Historically, they couldn't even get along with each other. Catholics and Protestants killed and oppressed one another, depending on who was in power at the time. If the threat of Hell really did keep people from doing evil, why is it almost everyone in prison are Christian? It seems to me to have the opposite affect. Countries that are the most secular have the lowest violent crime rates. Today, Christians continue to oppress people. Unable to keep their religious beliefs restricted to their private lives, they insist on using the government to force their beliefs on everyone else.

Unfortunately, we don't have any credible statistics regarding the impact Christianity may have had on mortality over its two-thousand year lifespan. All I  can say is that I've seen it do a lot of harm and have seen it as the source of violence and irrational hatred. Atheism, by contrast, I've seen do almost no harm at all.

Jagella

Quote from: _Xenu_ on May 19, 2019, 12:56:45 PM
I don't know why so many people think Hitler was an atheist.

That's a really interesting issue. I'm guessing that the clergy in America painted Hitler as an atheist fearing that people might see him as a Christian. Nowadays Christian apologists love to tell people that Hitler was an atheist. I suppose the message is that people better believe in God or turn into a Nazi!

QuoteStalin was, but he was also a communist.

I've read at least two books about Stalin and have watched several documentaries about him. He was driven primarily by the communist revolution. His atheism didn't figure much in what he did.

Unbeliever

Quote from: Baruch on May 19, 2019, 01:38:58 PM
Beware of sentient mustaches ... it was an alien attached to his face, like in Alien ;-)  I will never have a mustache as grand as his!  But then I don't allow aliens to parasitize me.
Yeah, I think John Bolton has one of those alien parasites stuck on his face, making him play jingoist bells for war.
God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Unbeliever

God Not Found
"There is a sucker born-again every minute." - C. Spellman

Mike Cl

I do understand that christianity, by itself, while being violent from its inception, may not be responsible for all of the violence of the world--but substitute 'organized religion' for christianity and I maintain that that is the cause of most of the violence of the world.  If organized religion could be eradicated from this world, it would become a more peaceful and thoughtful place to live.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Simon Moon

#26
Quote from: Jagella on May 19, 2019, 09:57:26 AM
How do atheists respond to the charge that atheism leads to genocide and other horrors?

It was totalitarian dictators responsible for genocidal regimes, not atheism.

Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, etc, were first and foremost, totalitarian dictators. It is in the "totalitarian dictators" handbook, to eliminate those groups and individuals likely to be a threat to your power. Religious groups, among other groups, likely to fit the bill.

It is bad dogma that leads to genocidal regimes. Stalin's, Pol Pot's, Mao's genocidal regimes had nothing to to do with their disbelief in gods. What they did was, succede in replacing the bad dogma of an infallible deity, with the bad dogma of an infallible State.

All one has to do it look at present day Sweden, Denmark,Norway, Finland, Iceland, Japan, the most atheistic countries (all over 60% atheist). Where are the genocidal If atheism leads to genocide, where are Swedish or Norwegian genocidal regimes? 

Atheism is not a worldview, there is no dogma, no doctrine, no leaders, no holy book, etc.  There is no direct line that can be drawn from "I disbelieve in the existence of gods" to, "therefore I will murder millions".
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence - Russell

Sal1981

Quote from: Mike Cl on May 19, 2019, 06:24:22 PM
I do understand that christianity, by itself, while being violent from its inception, may not be responsible for all of the violence of the world--but substitute 'organized religion' for christianity and I maintain that that is the cause of most of the violence of the world.  If organized religion could be eradicated from this world, it would become a more peaceful and thoughtful place to live.

I don't think it's that easy. I think that our innate nature results into something that grows into organized religion, well any ideology actually. Particularly our tenacity for patternicity and from that ascribing agents where none exists. With education for all, much of this will fade away into obscurity, sure, but as long as our innate nature has these faults will mean they will persist ever so slightly.

Mike Cl

Quote from: Sal1981 on May 19, 2019, 06:39:02 PM
I don't think it's that easy. I think that our innate nature results into something that grows into organized religion, well any ideology actually. Particularly our tenacity for patternicity and from that ascribing agents where none exists. With education for all, much of this will fade away into obscurity, sure, but as long as our innate nature has these faults will mean they will persist ever so slightly.
You may be right.  But I have not studied what our (human) innate natures really are.  I may be splitting hairs, but I don't condemn 'spirituality' (however one may define it), but do condemn 'organized'  religion.  It is the organized hierarchy that turns spirituality into a deadly belief system.  The more highly structured the religion is the more deadly it becomes.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?

Baruch

#29
Quote from: Jagella on May 19, 2019, 04:33:09 PM
Hitler was a lot of things and was influenced by a lot of different people. To call him a "pagan Christian influenced by Nietzsche" isn't too much of a stretch.

Not just influenced by Nietzsche, but by the sister of Nietzsche.  Nietzsche (Dionysius vs Apollo) was a neo-pagan, same as Hitler (Germanic gods).  Both are ex-Christian, though Nietzsche more notably.  Hitler's family was cultural Christian, not religious at all.  The baleful influence was the fact that Nietzsche's sister lived off her brother's fame, and she is the one who equated Aryan with Superman and Slave with Jew.  The other baleful influence was that Hitler loved his mother and hated his father (who ridiculed and beat him).  But it was Voltaire who invented modern anti-Semitism, as part of his general war against Abrahamic religions (France was Catholic in his day).  It was a coincidence ... that a son of the richest Jew in the Austro-Hungarian Empire went to the same grammar school as Hitler (the boy who became Wittgenstein the philosopher).  But it makes a great conspiracy theory ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jew_of_Linz

Best of Nietzsche ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkhbSLExYbc

On Wagner vs Hitler ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7L6MVyeFOTo
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.