Religion
Related: About this forumReligion is Convenient for Those Uncomfortable with Questioning
Religion is a simple way of answering the many difficult questions humans seem to have. By creating deities who "did it," people are relieved of the uncertainty and discomfort of not understanding the world around them, their place in it, and other problematic issues.
Some religions assign different deities to different things. Polytheism, though, is complicated in its own way. All those deities to think about, worship, or propitiate. Still, humans, early on, used that method to create whatever deities were needed to answer whatever questions were being asked. But there was still a lot of inconvenient stuff in polytheistic cultures. Too damned complex, really.
Monotheistic religions and those which combine deities into some sort of conglomerate deity have it somewhat easier. It's more convenient to have just a single deity to explain stuff and to blame when things aren't going well. So, Judaism, Christianity and Islam were progressive, in the sense that they reduced the number of deities needed to explain everything. That saved people even more time and let them just worship and propitiate a single deity.
Stuff needs explanation. People think. They wonder. Deities help with that. If you believe the stories about whatever deities your culture created, you don't have to worry about those things. The deity is responsible for all that stuff. End of story.
Fortunately, some people don't mind being inconvenienced and set about investigating stuff. They aren't satisfied with simple explanations that require some sort of supernatural entity to create and manage. They don't want convenience. They want answers that can be demonstrated, studied, theorized about and tested.
Religion is convenient. Reality is quite inconvenient, but far more interesting. Religion is a comfy chair. Reality is a series of jobs that will never be completed, really.
Thank goodness there are so many people who don't mind doing those jobs, while the others are sitting on their convenient furniture. Without the searchers for real answers, we'd still be scratching at the ground with sticks and hunting for food with spears.
So, if convenience is your priority, follow a religion, settle into your comfortable spot, sit back, and relax. If you don't mind not knowing everything, but are interested in searching for greater understanding, there's a terrifically interesting Universe out there to explore. You can easily learn, too, from other explorers. It's a choice that anyone can make, really. Personally, I don't mind being uncomfortable, as long as things are interesting.
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ollie10
(2,091 posts)OMG, you have just about out done yourself today!
Jesus, I am assuming you would grant that he was religious, followed his religion to the cross. Now you are saying that that gruesome death was a "comfy chair"?
Same for all those who martred themselves for their religious faith? Comfy chair?
Those who took an unpopular position or even went to jail for their faith, such as Christian pacifists? Prison and death row a comfy chair?
You should be embarrassed.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Really...
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Really....
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)his sacrifice was entirely symbolic, a show of no consequence to an immortal.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)Response to Voltaire2 (Reply #30)
ollie10 This message was self-deleted by its author.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)It doesn't sound like it. I suggest you think about it a little longer.
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)People generally don’t think about their religion. They just repeat the platitudes and that is the end of it. That is probably at least 90% of believers.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Lots of other people were crucified by the Romans. Their sacrifice was much greater than that of Jesus, because they stayed dead.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)One of the most commonly known about Bible verse is John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
You might want to brush up on the Bible a little bit more before you make a fool of yourself.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)knowledge of the Bible. If the best you can do is to quote the best-known verse in the New Testament, I suspect she knows the Bible better than you do.
It's always wise to think twice before calling someone a fool. Very often, the person being called that is not the fool.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)That is her belief, perhaps, but it is not something that is consistent with the Bible
Mariana
(14,854 posts)have never been exposed to Christianity, never went to Sunday School, never listened to a sermon, never read the Bible, etc. etc.
One of the things my Sunday School teachers liked to say was "Jesus took our place on the cross," which is obviously false. Even if the story is true, he did no such thing. If he'd taken our place, he'd have stayed dead and his soul would be in hell being tortured for eternity (or whatever unpleasant thing unsaved sinners are supposed to experience after they die).
Now I'm supposed to be impressed that Jesus suffered horribly before he died temporarily. That would be meaningful if he were the only person ever to have suffered horribly, but we all know that isn't true.
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son..." Really? Isn't Jesus supposed to be at his father's side in heaven? Again, where's the sacrifice?
It's a nice touch that Ollie has implied twice that I want to exterminate Christians.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Didn't he come back to life after a few days, hang out with his friends for awhile, and then ascend to heaven? I say again, that isn't much of a sacrifice.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Do you think we should execute people today using this method? I would argue that it would be cruel and unusual punishment. Apparently you would think it is no big sacrifice, no big deal. Especially if the executed goes to heaven.
So why don't you round up millions of christians or jews and execute them? No big deal. No sacrifice for them,....right?
Mariana
(14,854 posts)He wasn't. Thousands upon thousands of people were crucified exactly as Jesus was. They didn't get to rise after a couple of days, visit with their buddies, and then go home to be with their dads. They stayed dead permanently.
Are you really trying to assert that temporary death is equal to or worse than permanent death? Seriously?
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)head off to your dad's house? How would that impact what happened, if you already knew that. I mean, if you were a deity, yourself, and knew everything, since you were omniscient.
In fact, the Bible makes it quite clear that the Jesus described therein knew that. It was all foreordained. It was known.
An interesting question, I think, but one that isn't much asked.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)should we institute it today for punishing criminals? again, a simple yes or no will suffice
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Many things are painful. Childbirth. A kidney stone. Open chest heart surgery. A car accident or gunshot wound. Many cancers. In all of those cases, if you know you will survive the pain and return to a more or less pain-free life afterward, it makes the pain easier to bear. I've been there. I know that's true.
Take childbirth as an example. The expectant mother knows that there is a reward for her pain in the child that is being born. The pain will still occur, but it has a good result that is expected. Pain is a bad thing. Fear is a bad thing. Most of us will experience one or the other or both. However, if one is assured that there will be an end to that pain and good things thereafter, the pain is bearable.
If the story were true, then Jesus knew about the resurrection and the benefit to mankind of his crucifixion. That's what the Bible says, whether you know that part of the story or not. Pain that ends with a good result is far more bearable than pain that does not.
Perhaps you understand what I'm saying. Perhaps you do not. I don't know.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)But your words multiplied like weeds!
So you are comparing crucifixion to a kidney stone? to child birth? a gunshot wound? cancer?
I am sure having faith would help someone withstand pain, but that is not the point.
It is obvious that you are trying to diminish people's pain and suffering because they believed they would go to heaven.
Then, were the genocides against religious people less horrible because the victims thought they would go to heaven?
That's balderdash.
Jesus's suffering on the cross was no less painful depending on whether or not he went to heaven.
Nice try, though!
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Not well, anyhow. Further, you don't get to demand a one-word answer from anyone. Especially from the person who started the thread.
My words often multiply like weeds. That's how I make my living, you see.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)MineralMan
(146,284 posts)What I've noticed is how often people who do not wish to understand write in very short sentences and demand one-word answers.
That's what I've noticed.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Is crucifixion painful? Do you believe we should use it as a punishment for criminals today?
It should not be difficult to answer these questions in a clear and non-evasive way.
Please avoid word salad.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)I oppose all capital punishment.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)I hope you learned something.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)Why are you angry? Why aren't you rejoicing and being glad?
"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven..." - Jesus Christ
Why don't you follow the very clear instructions of Jesus, after he did all that for you? Your refusal to do one of the smallest, simplest things he wants you to do makes you appear to be very ungrateful indeed.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)Reread his words. He clearly said to rejoice and be glad when it happens. What he says makes sense, since he also says you're blessed because of it. See, I'm doing you a favor, causing you to be blessed!
ollie10
(2,091 posts)MineralMan
(146,284 posts)That's just embarrassing for you. Perhaps it's time to stop.
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)Are you asking me if I support using it? No.
Now it’s your turn: what is pain to an immortal deity?
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)Is he suffering now, in heaven?
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Obviously you don't care abut pain unless it is eternal .
Sorta goffy,but you have a right to being insensitive to pain.wow
Mariana
(14,854 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)You certainly show yourself when you attack others.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)I certainly never claimed to have all the answers about anything, so if you really thought that, it was entirely a construction of your own imagination.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)of pain by an entity you believe is an all powerful deity, and compare that experience to the experience of, for example Barabbas, one of the other two victims of crucifixion that day.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)didn't you know that? i thought you knew everything!!!
Mariana
(14,854 posts)The lack of capital letters beginning your sentences is impressive, but it would be even better if you combined that with capitalization of a some random words in your post.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)And you are the xaptain. Take a bow!
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)Jesus is one part of the three part deity of the religion. All three are eternal and equal and the peculiar “consubstantial”.
So Jesus is, accordingly, fully aware that his death is a symbolic event for mortals, and being equal to the “father” creator-god part of the trinity, is all powerful in addition to all knowing. So again, what is the pain of crucifixion to an all powerful being? What real sacrifice has an immortal being made by being symbolicly put to death?
Response to Voltaire2 (Reply #111)
Post removed
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)It is odd, to me anyway, that the religious don’t really want to discuss their beliefs.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Jesus plainly said they aren't supposed to do that, they're not supposed to hide their lights under bushels, but are supposed to hold them up high for everyone to see. But what the hell, they tend to pay very little attention to anything he had to say.
What I don't get is posting in a group that exists for the very purpose of discussing religion, and flatly refusing to discuss religion. How weird is that?
marylandblue
(12,344 posts)So the standard Christian interpretation is that he really did suffer a true, painful death as a man even though he also was God.
I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what they said way back when.
Voltaire2
(12,995 posts)the sacrificial act a symbolic rather than real sacrifice, if you believe he is a god. He knows he’ll be back in three days, and as the all powerful creator of the universe human pain and suffering can’t be of any consequence.
Of course if you don’t believe obvious nonsense he was just one of many people over the courses of history horribly executed for political crimes.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)That will affect my answer.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Apparently, we are to understand that this is exactly the same as if they physically rise from the grave, walk around, eat, drink, and chatt with their friends here on earth.
Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)ollie10
(2,091 posts)As usual, you are busy building straw men in your never ending search of a new way to criticize religious people and mock their faith
Mariana
(14,854 posts)I am relating the story faithfully as it is told in the gospels, and giving my opinion about the events described therein. If you think I'm telling the story incorrectly, please post the Bible passages that demonstrate I am wrong.
What makes death a big sacrifice, normally, is that it's permanent. I'm not denying Jesus died an agony, but that isn't unique, lots of people die in agony. They all stay dead, though. They don't get up and eat and drink and travel around visiting people. Their bodies stay in their graves and rot. The only thing that makes Jesus's death unique is that it was temporary.
Again, what's the big sacrifice in dying temporarily?
ollie10
(2,091 posts)against people who believe they would go to heaven?
As for me, I would oppose this. Whether or not they thought they were going to heaven.
Apparently you think it would make a difference. How odd.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)What's the big sacrifice in dying temporarily?
And please stop trying to pretend you can't figure out the difference between a corpse in the ground whose alleged soul may or may not be in some alleged heaven, and a physically resurrected previously dead person who is walking around, talking, eating, drinking, traveling and visiting friends. That is incredibly dishonest and it doesn't fool anyone.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)What of the rest? You are taking a very narrow view of things, I think.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)rainin
(3,010 posts)Perhaps, if you are still in your human form, you can see that you enjoying the comfy chair that religion provides. You even get a comfy chair when your loved ones die. It's harder for those of us who know our loved ones are just gone.
ollie10
(2,091 posts)
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)or the lazy, religion is the solution.
On the other hand, truly smart people are not satisfied with simplistic things and their larger intellects require more challenge.
And of course those smart people will arrive at the correct answers.
What a convenient answer.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)I did not mention intelligence at all. You brought it up.
I've known many intelligent people who were religious. Somewhat incurious, but intelligent.
Once again, you have added words in your own mind to what I said, and posted your words here as though I had written them. I do wish you'd stop doing that, please.
Thanks for your cooperation.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Keep up the dream g-man
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Lordquinton
(7,886 posts)MineralMan
(146,284 posts)guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Some are just afraid of the inevitable end.
guillaumeb
(42,641 posts)Perhaps.
bitterross
(4,066 posts)
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)I don't think the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sat in any "comfy chairs" during the course of his faith-based social activism. Nor did the many people of faith--for instance those in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference--who were threatened, jailed, beaten, and in some cases murdered--because they interpreted their faith in ways that compelled them to take a stand against social injustice.
There was a video posted yesterday commemorating the White Rose anti-Nazi movement in Germany, 1942-43. Those Christian students paid with their lives, were literally beheaded, while millions of others--many with little or no faith--stood aside and did nothing. The White Rose students--especially Hans and Sophie Scholl--questioned and challenged their government, the war, the very foundations of their society--while most others went along without question.
So there's that to consider.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)Religion has also led to many horrible deaths of people who did not believe in the same way. But, that's not really the subject of this thread at all. The thread is about knowledge and approaches to knowledge.
Religious people have often been persecuted and have often persecuted others. That's an unfortunate fact that has to do with religion. But it's not what this thread is about.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)tend to be inherently intellectually lazy, and uncomfortable with or unwilling to engage in asking questions. It seems to be tagging faith as a precursor or indicator of such laziness, that a religious person's "approach to knowledge" is to recline in some intellectual "comfy chair," as opposed, I suppose, to atheists who are intellectually robust and rigorous in their questioning of--well, I guess everything.
I'm pointing out that there are very many and very salient exceptions what seems to me to be an overly broad generalization. And it begs the question--if faith lends itself so easily to intellectual sloth, and comfort and ease, to accepting without question the religious (and by extension the social) order, how is it so many people of undoubted commitment to asking uncomfortable questions were and are in fact people of faith? In the American context we have Rev. King, Rev., Jessie Jackson, Malcolm X, Rep. John Lewis, the Berrigan Brothers, and on and on and on. Outside of America we have Gandhi, the White Rose, Desmond Tutu, Dietrich Bonnhoeffer, etc. etc. The whole Protestant movement was started by people asking hard (and dangerous) questions about the religious and social order--(former monk) Martin Luther being first and foremost among them. Judaism alone has produced many great thinkers, philosophers and scholars who have asked some very tough questions about their own faith and about the nature of existence.
And of course non-religious people have also "been persecuted and have often persecuted others." Indeed, there have been masses of self-proclaimed atheists who have followed--without question--edicts and orders leading to the deaths of uncounted millions. Lenin's "democratic centralism" was tantamount to demanding unquestioning acceptance of the pronouncements of the Communist Central Committee on everything from economics to politics to the very definitions of individual liberty. Stalinists took it to such extremes that tens of millions died of artificially induced famine, not to mention the purges, the slave labor camps, and so on. Communists in the USA, Britain, France, even Germany were expected to follow--without question--a party line that was anti-Nazi one day, accommodating to Nazism the next day, and then anti-Nazi the day after. Read Khrushchev's speech to the 1956 Party Congress for a critique of the results of an unquestioned Party line, a Party Line that eschewed anything to do with faith or religion, that prided itself on objective materialism. Then throw in the Great Leap Forward and the Great Cultural Revolution, also largely the results of unquestioning obedience to an ideology that was also expressly anti-religious, and it seems to me we have to look further than the simple question of religious faith vs. non-faith to explain the human propensity for mass violence and repression.
My thought for the moment is that any self-contained, enclosed and self-justifying ideology, religious or not, will lead, or at least has the great potential to lead, to great excesses. This would include people who pride themselves on their adherence to the scientific method. The German and American eugenics movement of the late 19th to mid 20th centuries comes to mind as an instance where scientists themselves were dreadfully wrong, and very many innocent people suffered for their mistakes.
I'll leave the whole discussion of polytheism vs. monotheism to another time.
Best wishes.
Doodley
(9,078 posts)accept their faith, because they were indoctrinated and told that was the truth from a young age, or were they curious enough to question their faith and to seek other answers?
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)it was a faith he accepted while he was in prison.
Dr. King was born into his faith (his father was also a minister) but since he went so far as to get a doctorate in divinity (from Boston University, I think) he was evidently much more than a passive believe.
Gandhi wrote a book "My Experiments with Truth" about his questing for the core truths of God and existence. I personally thought it was slow reading, but it shows how Gandhi spent most of his life asking the heavy questions.
I think all of them must have had doubts at times--it's human nature. But in the end they were willing to take great risks in the cause of social justice. That's the aspect of their faith that interests me the most.
Mme. Defarge
(8,026 posts)Thank you for going to the trouble, suffering the inconvenience, of making this cogent and forceful rebuttal to the O.P.’s facile and dismissive characterization of so-called theists. As if nothing of consequence was ever discovered or created or developed or nurtured or appreciated until some brave and enterprising souls - oops, maybe make that “beings” - got off of their pews and started to think “real hard”.
In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, all other virtues - and pride is not among them - are predicated on humility. (The O.P. obviously has never experienced an Eastern Orthodox Holy Week, which could not be described as “relaxing”.)
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)And best wishes.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)People like Dr. King are the exception, not the rule. The majority of religious people, at least in the South, opposed integration and equality. If most of them had agreed with Dr. King, there wouldn't there have been any need for his social activism in the first place.
The same was true in Nazi Germany. The overwhelming majority of the population were Christian at the time, and the overwhelming majority of them did exactly nothing to try to stop the Nazis.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)opposed integration. But do you have evidence that this was different among white people who weren't religious? I'd be curious to see that.
As for Nazi Germany--the overwhelming majority stayed silent, unless they were directly affected by the oppression.
I guess one question to ask would be--are social activists in such situations, places where social justice activism is downright dangerous--more likely to be religious, or non-religious? What percentage of religious people are willing to speak out, as opposed to what percentage of non-religious people?
Or put it another way--looking at the people who actually gave their lives in a cause for social justice, are they more likely to be people of faith, or not?
Don't know the answers to those questions off hand, but I'd be interested in finding out.
Best wishes.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)However, I don't think Dr. King, for example, intended to give his life. Of course he knew there was danger, he received threats, but it's not like he knew he'd be killed that day if he went out, and then went out anyway.
There have certainly been cases of atheists receiving death threats from Christians for speaking out. We've had threads in this group discussing it before. Some of the atheists threatened have been children.
The number of non-religious people in those two societies you mentioned were so small as to be politically and historically insignificant. They just didn't have the numbers to have a real effect in either place, no matter what they did. We do know that some atheists were involved in the civil rights movement (MineralMan, who posts in this group, was one of them), and we know that Himmler didn't want any atheists in the SS, and that Hitler spoke against atheists in some of his speeches.
I don't argue that some people are motivated to do good by their religion, but it works both ways. It's just a fact that before and during the civil rights movement, many churches preached segregation and the inherent inferiority of African Americans. If Dr. King's religion is to be given credit for his activism, then the religion of those who vigorously opposed him, as well as those who supported segregation and inequality in the first place, should be given equal credit for their stances.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)than most any others you cite. His home was dynamited while he and his family were sleeping. Shots were fired at him when he marched in Chicago. He was stabbed--almost to death--at a book signing in New York City. He was in a church, preaching at a night gathering, when an angry white mob surrounded the building and came near to burning it to the ground, and federal marshals had to be called in to protect him. And yet he continued his work. I think he expected to die, certainly his last sermon made it plain that he did. Oscar Romero was much the same. He was warned that preaching against the Salvadoran junta would earn him a visit from the death squads. He was gunned down while administering mass, and the people attending his funeral were sprayed by machine guns. This is a level of repression few of us have ever had to face.
Likewise, the people who opposed Hitler knew they were risking their lives. Some of them committed suicide, knowing they were about to be caught and then tortured to death. That's WHY so few people opposed the Nazi regime, even people who understood what was happening. Interestingly enough, to my knowledge the only group that as a group consistently refused ANY collaboration with the Nazis, at any time, aside from Jews who were their obvious targets, were the Jehovah's Witnesses. It is a tenet of their faith that they eschew anything that smacks of worship of or service to any secular authority. And so they persisted in refusing to serve in the military, swear allegiance to Hitler, or offer obeisance in any other way, with the result that the vast majority of them living in Europe were murdered at Auschwitz. Not even the German Communist Party was so steadfast--ceasing its opposition for the duration of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
On Hitler and religion, I think one of the best authorities is Alan Bullock Jr. In his book, "Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives" he describes how Hitler detested Christianity, "regarding it as a religion fit only for slaves and detesting its ethics. 'Taken to its logical extremes, Christianity would mean the systematic cultivation of human failure.' Hitler declared conscience to be 'a Jewish invention, a blemish like circumcision'.... Hitler poured scorn on the earnest efforts of those among his followers, like Himmler, who tried to reestablish pagan mythology...." He called Protestant ministers "insignificant little people, submissive as dogs..." Hitler opposed atheists in that they didn't believe in a divine destiny--a destiny he claimed as his own. But his contempt for Christians, Jews, Hindus, among others, was quite deep.
I understand and acknowledge your point about great crimes being committed in the name of religion. Anyone who knows anything about history has to be aware of those crimes. But then, just as white Christianity was a bulwark in support of slavery and white supremacy, African American Christianity was for much of our history the single greatest factor in organizing against those evils. One question we can't answer for sure is whether or not slavery and white supremacy would have existed with equal cruelty and for the same length of time had there been no such thing as religion. I don't recall the slave economies of Greece or Rome having much to do with religion either way. In those cultures the plurality, perhaps even the majority of people were slaves, quite apart from any religious context.
So I think the question is more complicated than simple denunciations of all religion as mentally stultifying and necessarily conducive to oppression would have us believe. Just as I don't think neglecting to point out the ways religion (or any closed belief system--communism being a good case in point) can be easily coopted by the forces of repression and reaction serves any purpose either.
It is a fact that great movements for social justice--Gandhi's campaigns in South Africa and India, the abolitionist movement and civil rights movements in the United States, to point to just two--have been motivated by and organized through religion and religious institutions. It is also a fact that religion and religious institutions have been responsible for--or at the very least complicit in--some of the greatest individual and mass atrocities of human history.
The question is, how do we learn and benefit from that first fact, without falling into the pitfalls of the second.
This to me would be a more interesting discussion than the back and forth here of atheists vs. faithful.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)So many of the "great movements for social justice" in religion were only necessary because of the conditions established and perpetuated BY religious beliefs in the first place.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)since religion has, as far as I can see, existed in all times in all societies. There's evidence as far back as the Neanderthals of primates performing rituals when burying their dead. Even the great 20th century experiments with atheism--the Soviet Union, the China of the Great Cultural Revolution, the Kampuchea of Pol Pot--were conducted in societies with long histories of religious belief. How then can we measure how much of that miserable history was a reaction to religion, how much an outcome of strident atheism?
And were these conditions "established" by religious beliefs, or did the religious beliefs follow in the wake of established hierarchies of political, social, and economic power? Sometimes it seems as though religion had little to do with the local social stratification--I don't see how, for instance, a belief in Zeus or Hermes, or the various local nature and hearth gods and goddesses of the Greek peasantry--had much to do with who held power in Sparta or Athens. Thucydides says not word one about any religious underpinnings to the Peloponnesian War. And the Roman cult of emperor worship came as an aftermath of the end of the Republic, not as a precursor to it.
It is on the other hand obvious that religion and religious beliefs have very often been used after the fact to justify social, political, and economic inequality.
Someday maybe there will be a preponderance of atheists in the world, in which case we'll be able better to test what seems to be your theory--that religion is the root of all evil. I tend to think physical violence comes closer to being the prime cause--the original sin, so to speak--from which all subsequent problems flow. Back in pre-history, when the first men seized power over others through brute force, traumatizing those around them and then relying on continued violence or the threat of violence to maintain that power--that's where our problems began, problems we still live with today, a thousand or more generations later. There's a whole new generation of historians working their way up through academia--"trauma historians"--who have begun to explore this idea. I would argue that religion comes AFTER that violence, as a way by some to rationalize what they have seized through brute force or power of inheritance. In the American context--first we have massive and growing inequality, after which comes "prosperity theology" as a way to justify these developments, as a sop to the economic powers that be.
And speaking of trauma and history--wasn't it Trotsky who said that in politics the shortest distance between any two points was physical violence? Or maybe that was something Trotsky said later about Stalin. I forget.
Best wishes.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)We can see religious nuts TODAY justifying horrible things based on certain passages from their holy texts. We *know* this happened with slavery, and Jim Crow style persecution, and so many other things. It's great that some religious people were inspired by their religion to rise up against the status quo. But let's not pretend the status quo they fought against wasn't created and propped up by religion in the first place.
And please note, at NO TIME did I make the claim that "religion is the root of all evil." Don't use straw men. Additionally, my username isn't related to the historical Trotsky. Sorry for any confusion.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)or similar horrors wouldn't have been perpetrated for other reasons, had religion not taken hold as it did. Indeed, the twentieth century offered several examples of persecutions/genocides/atrocities that rivaled Jim Crow and the Spanish Inquisition, which were conducted by governments that were expressly anti-religion. And the economies of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire were also based on slavery, perhaps even more so than the American South, but this seems to have little to do with religion as it existed then.
And you may not have made the claim that religion is the root of all evil, but it certainly seems to be a subtext to some of the posts here. But perhaps I'm over-reading.
"Trotsky" as a user name does seem rather rife with opportunities for confusion, given the context of your posts. He is, after all, one of the most famous atheists ever to have lived.
Anyway, I'll try to do better in terms of not misreading your posts, and I do apologize to the extent that I have.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)(And still is.) And yes, you're over-reading.
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)sources. Think about it. Imagine no religion, too.
Eko
(7,276 posts)
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)"24. We demand freedom for all religious denominations, provided that they do not endanger the existence of the State or offend the concepts of decency and morality of the Germanic race.
The Party as such stands for positive Christianity, without associating itself with any particular denomination. It fights against the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a permanent revival of our nation can be achieved only from within, on the basis of: Public Interest before Private Interest."
Their Programme was co-written by Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler. Absolutely nobody can successfully contradict those two on what it means to be a Nazi.
Eko
(7,276 posts)Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)Rather than stick to genuine atheists who were bad guys like Stalin and Mao, they just have to try to pretend that an atheist is a guy who prohibited atheists from even joining the SS because he was on a mission from gawd and attributed his survival of dozens of assassination attempts to divine providence. It's weird.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)I'm in the room, you know.
Anyway, I don't think Hitler was an atheist, though I suspect most of his more pious statements were horseshit designed to fool the rubes, much like his constant assertions that he loved peace and hated war. But he clearly believed in some higher power--and his being entitled to exercise that power on earth. We can glean that much from the transcripts of his private conversations.
This in no way undermines my original point, made way back when, that the most consistent and perhaps the most courageous of those opposing Hitler were people of faith. These were people who did indeed ask many uncomfortable questions--hardly the intellectual light-weights that the OP is calling out.
That so much social justice work has been done by people who are motivated by religion hardly seems controversial--just as so much repression has also been done by religious people and justified by religious belief.
It's seems to me simplistic to try to deny either of those assertions.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)But if we're completely candid your point never had a solid enough foundation to worry about it being undermined.
I will tell you openly that I find Hitler's religious views to be somewhat unorthodox. He was a vegetarian who ate sausage, and the Fuhrerprinzip was really his only constant as a leader, so it's not like consistency was ever much of a strong point for him. Still, we know the Nazis were an avowedly christian organization because they went out of their way to define themselves that way. Adolf Hitler and Anton Drexler did so explicitly in the 25 Points of their Programme, and their credibility on defining Nazism is unparalleled. And let's be very clear that they thought it was important enough to build right into their manifesto, which is not the same thing as just mouthing a few banalities to dupe the gullible. Also, the evil things done by the Third Reich had many perpetrators, but the heavy lifting was done by the SS--which explicitly banned non-theists from membership. Given the rarity of Taoist or Buddhist Germans at the time, this means the SS was all but exclusively a christian operation. Death camps, Einsatzgruppen, ghetto clearing, you name it: christians through and through. It was faith which made Auschwitz possible.
So the net result is that you have a few christians opposing a huge group of christians. On balance, many more christians participated in evil in the Third Reich than opposed it. They may have been the good guys as individuals, but they did so by opposing an organization which proclaimed itself to be christian and was composed almost exclusively of christians.
Similarly a religion gets points if one of its adherents has the courage to pull a burned cross out of his yard like MLK did so famously. But they lose more when a bunch of its adherents burn it there in the first place. At some point, when the bad guys outnumber the good guys dozens to one, maybe there's something wrong with the fundamental worldview.
It's not that religion has never been associated with anything positive, but that it's beyond dispute that it's been associated with more negative, as the example of the avowedly christian Nazi Party shows.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)Seriously, though, yes, this strident Christianity is there in the 25 points. Well below the calls to "nationalize all trusts" and for "the confiscation of all war profits" and "profit sharing in all large industries"--none of which were ever taken seriously by Hitler or his inner circle post 1933. The only one of his henchmen at all serious about this "second revolution" was Roehm, who was of course purged in 1934.
If the twenty-five points makes the Nazis a "Christian" Party, then one might as well declare Hitler and his followers "socialists"--since they also kept the original name of the party--"National Socialist German Workers Party." This of course is the justification right wingers like Ann Coulter use to insist that the Nazis were on the extreme left, not the extreme right. Personally, I think Hitler's "Christianity" is up there with his "socialism" as a genuine belief, but from what you've posted I think you already know that.
As for weighing or trying to balance the positive versus the negative impacts of specific religions or religion in general, I don't know how that's even remotely possible. One could just as easily try to balance the good and bad outcomes of atheism. To ask: what good have atheists done in the world that counterbalances, let's say, the millions who died in Stalin's slave labor camps, or the killing fields of Kampuchea? One can at least point to religious architecture, music, literature--to Bach, Raphael, Michelangelo. Have you read any "social realist" literature? Seen Stalin's contribution to the Moscow skyline, or the blocks of buildings in the former East Berlin (commonly referred to by the locals as Brezhnev Baroque)? We've had maybe ten thousand years of religious thought and belief to assess, imposed or otherwise, as opposed to less than a hundred years of society-wide atheism as manifested in the various experiments with Marxism or Marxism-Leninism or Maoism. One might argue that twenty years of Stalin produced about as many corpses as a centuries' worth of religious war, but that would be both crass and unverifiable--so simplistic as to be useless, especially in the context of our politics today.
Nor can I see how one can reasonably tease out what is the direct result of religion, as opposed to being an ancillary to economic or political or social factors. The same works, by the way, for the positive as well as the negative. Would Martin Luther King Jr. or Mohandas Gandhi have been as courageous, had they not had a religious tradition as the context in which to do their work? We have no way of knowing. Would their societies have needed their courage to reform, without religion? Again, impossible to know. So you see, I tend to be an agnostic in matters of history as well as theology. I just thought, when I jumped into this thread, that someone should raise the points I was trying to raise.
And I think that, since we all live in an actual, real world in which religion exists, it makes more sense as progressives to align ourselves with religious progressives, rather than to cast them off as intellectual sloths and troglodytes, as seems to be the case with some of the threads posted here. I have no problem with castigating RWNJs for their extreme hypocrisy (at the very least), for instance in the way they've swallowed whatever Trump dishes out. But I assume most of the people who post here, and probably most of those who read the posts, are in rough agreement with the overall progressive agenda--which includes a strict separation of church and state. So the back and forth here about how having some sort of religious or faith outlook almost inevitably makes one out to be a dolt (or not) seems to me counterproductive.
Probably I should just stay away from the "Religion" forum, which seems so often to come down to this back and forth. My bad for taking this all so seriously.
Best wishes.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)Their explicit avowals of christianity aside, their use of the SS is also very damning and demonstrates it was not just lip service. From our safe post-war point of view, we tend to think of the SS simply as a military elite and the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, maybe with a nod to the inefficiencies involved in races to build private armies. But those were never intended to be the ends, just the means. The original vision was that the SS would provide the post-war leadership for a victorious Third Reich ruling Greater Germany, its conquests, and its outright Lebensraum. The reason the SS did the dirty work of genocide and the heavy lifting of a military elite was purely to provide them the moral authority to rule after they won the war. By excluding atheists from their ranks and requiring religious profession, they made it clear that the leadership felt that their right to conquer the world and commit genocide had a religious basis. Garble that religious message as they may have done, the bottom line is that religion was still foundational to their belief that they were the good guys.
As examples of religion making people stand up to evil go, it's right there with the Spanish Inquisition.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)Germany has a particularly brutal history of mixing religion and politics--the Thirty Years War being just one massive example.
Himmler also had this bizarre notion of re-introducing Nordic paganism (or his misinformed version of it) as Germany's dominant faith. Hitler was apparently contemptuous of the whole idea, but then Hitler was contemptuous of just about everything and everyone. Then there was the "German Christian" movement that attempted overtly to fuse Christianity with Nazism, as strange as that seems, what with the whole Jesus being Jewish and all.
Anyway, thanks for your reply. I'm learning a lot here.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)I'm never really sure how seriously to take his paganism. I'm leaning toward viewing it as an attempt to just appropriate a ritual mysticism with Germanic origins rather than serious theology as such. More high school pep rally than religion, if that makes any sense.
It should be acknowledged that religious differences were as often the pretext as the cause of conflict in the Thirty Years' War, but at a minimum it can be said that things get uglier the more you can treat your opponent as "the other." Of course, plague and famine outdid the most enthusiastic slaughter of that war anyway. And I'm not awed by religious approaches to plague in particular...
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)He believed in some sort of divine providence--and himself as acting out that providence.
Nevertheless, he had deep contempt for Christians, Jews, Hindus... And these photos of him greeting Father Christmas are about as sincere as his constant protestations that he was "a man of peace" who "hated war."
Probably the closest we can come to characterizing his "faith" is to say he was social Darwinist--survival of fittest, with "God" favoring the strong and ruthless.
None of which addresses my original point, way back when, that the most consistent opponents to Hitler and Nazism turned out to be people of faith. As I said, there were times when even communists were willing to temper their opposition, on instructions from Stalin and the Comintern. These people clearly weren't leaning back in their "comfy" faith-based mental easy chairs.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)and ignoring the actions of the vast numbers of the religious people in those societies. Remember the percentages we're talking about. In Nazi Germany, and in the South during the civil rights era, well over 90% of the population was Christian. Millions of Christians. There just wasn't any politically significant population of non-Christians in either place, and yet the atrocities happened.
The Second World War and the Holocaust happened because a very large number of Christians became Nazis themselves, enabled the Nazis, or stood by and did nothing to stop the Nazis. Slavery, segregation, and lynchings happened because a very large number of Christians were racist themselves, enabled the racists, or stood by and did nothing to stop the racists. Etc.
Recently, a descendant of Robert E. Lee, who is a minister, spoke publicly in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. His congregation were so upset by this that Rev. Lee felt he had to leave his church and resigned. Which is more representative of the actual, real Christianity being practiced there, the congregation who were offended by their former pastor's statements, or their former pastor?
Eko
(7,276 posts)that when Christians do bad things its just because they are human, and humans do bad things.That it's is not because they are Christians. The inverse would also be true if that premise is also true, or they did good things because they are human and not because they are Christians.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)and use their religion as excuse or justification, then religion definitely plays a role. If, for instance, a homophobe uses Leviticus to justify their homophobia, then at the very least religion is playing the role of making bigotry acceptable.
By the same token, when someone like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi explicitly cite their faith as his motivation for taking a courageous stand, then I'd also say religion was playing a significant role, and for the good.
Likewise, when religious infrastructure is used to proclaim and support reactionary policies and politics--as much of the evangelical infrastructure is being used today, then I'd call out the role religion plays.
Flipside of that coin--when the African American church was the single major player in helping to organize and support the civil rights struggle of the '40s through the '60s--then religion in my view is playing a positive role.
Given all the above, it's difficult for me to issue a blanket condemnation of religion, and religious people, as this OP seems to be doing. Nor would I give religion in general and religious people a blanket pass on their behaviors.
But you make an interesting point. Would Dr. King have taken the stands and risks he did, if he had not been religious? Or Gandhi? Of course there's no way of knowing.
Just out of curiosity, who would you name as a social activist who, as an atheist, led a social justice movement and made sacrifices and took risks on a par with King or Gandhi? I wonder, for instance, if Nelson Mandela was an atheist. (I'll have to Google and see). Offhand I can't think of anyone, aside from Mandela (if indeed he was an atheist). Who am I missing?
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Mikey Weinstein, and just about every other atheist activist who has worked for separation of church and state in the United States.
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)I don't know that he ever identified as an atheist, but he certainly appears to have had no use for organized religion. Apparently he somehow developed the perception that it persecutes minorities...
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)or a Mahatma Gandhi.
Harvey Milk comes closest, assuming he was an atheist, which people here say he was. Also possibly Nelson Mandala--he definitely is in that top stratum of activists who shook the world.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)O'Hair's fight for equal rights for non-religious individuals and for the separation of church and state was much less popular than Dr. King's movement, and was undertaken at tremendous risk to herself. And you think her victory in the Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional the promotion of Christianity in public schools didn't shake the world? Good grief, the repercussions are still being felt today! Politicians are still writing laws that try to weasel around that ruling!
Pope George Ringo II
(1,896 posts)Eko
(7,276 posts)Religion is playing the role of making bigotry acceptable.There were far more people in the 40-60's who were religious who were against the civil rights as today there are far more people that are religious that are making bigotry mainstream. You are pointing out the exception to the rule without understanding the mountain of proof that shows the opposite. Then you ask me to show you an atheist that has led a social justice movement who has made sacrifices and took risks on a par with King and Gandhi, I have to assume you have never heard of Socrates when you ask that question.
Act_of_Reparation
(9,116 posts)Vitally important labor and civil rights leader.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)He definitely is a major figure. I didn't know he was an atheist, so thanks for enlightening me.
Best wishes.
NeoGreen
(4,031 posts)
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)I agree.
thucythucy
(8,043 posts)
longship
(40,416 posts)Thanks for that one.
edhopper
(33,554 posts)where people live their lives according to God's prescription. Where the answer to most everything is "what does God wanr".
No matter the hardship or discomfort that brings, they are very sure what they do is right, because they are acting in accordance with God.
There is no question of why? The answer is always God.
bitterross
(4,066 posts)Or some discomfort on the way to truth. Rarely have I found the truth to be easiest path. Despite what people say about it being easy.
Mme. Defarge
(8,026 posts)This a spoof, right?
MineralMan
(146,284 posts)I signal my satirical writings very clearly.
Mme. Defarge
(8,026 posts)Just trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Gothmog
(145,079 posts)I started out as a doubting christian but ended asking a ton of questions and ended up converting to Judaism. If you like asking question, Judaism may be a fit for some. It was a fit for me. I like asking questions and analysisinp issues. I was already a lawyer when I converted.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)My father had dreams of being a Christian minister, but after studying Christianity in college there were too many things he couldn't reconcile.
Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)
samnsara
(17,615 posts)