Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history

surferdude wrote:

I fully agree with this. But I think if you took the time to notice you would find a re-occurring sentiment on this board that religion is bad and causes harm in the world.

Abookamongstthemany wrote:

I think the harm stems from how religions often take away an individual's responsibilty of using their own reasoning, thought processes, inner feelings and replace them with doctrine. When things are made right and wrong with no reasoning behind them other than supposedly being 'god's way' then a lot of unnecessary hate and prejudice can be created. People may often feel what they are doing or supporting is wrong but their blind faith all but erases that natural consciousness that guides us.

Specifics wrote:

I just think if man follows his heart and by doing so is a good man, then he is truly a good man, if he follows a book then he is just a robot, a sheep, programmed, theres no righteousness in that.

I dont believe any God wants me to spend my life worrying about what he thinks, we'll have a chat about it all at a later date (much later i hope)

Cosmo wrote:

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This is a perfect example of religious ferver short circuiting reason and cognitive thought. Your childish, unsubstantiated tantrum is the SAME type of things we hear from these Muslims that try to convince us that the rants of Isalmic religious leaders, preaching death and destruction have nothing to do with the religion of Islam. They need to accept the fact that the religion of Islam is being used by influential men to advocate death and violence... JUST LIKE HITLER used Christianity in his quest to rid Europe of the 'Jewish Scourge'. True or false interpretations of the religion or not... the religion is being used to convince followers of that religion to act in ways that is contrary to what the religion actually teaches. That is the dark side of blind faith (religion)... the ability of some to convince the masses of what their destiny is.
Your attacks on me do nothing to me, because I don't give a fuck what you think of me... you simply shine a light on your own narrow little mind. You can go on and continue to pretend that the factual truths of the past do not exist, simply because you are too small of a man to accept them. But, wish as you may... your faith will never change those truths or make them go away.
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Add... Regarding Pol Pot:
"People were executed for not working hard enough, complaining about living conditions, collecting or stealing food for their own use, wearing jewelry, having sexual relations, grieving over the loss of relatives or friends, or expressing religious sentiments. Even something as simple as wearing eye glasses could result in execution because the Khmer Rouge associated it with Western intellectualism. Sick people were often killed. The killings often occurred without even the pretense of a show trial, and they continued, uninterrupted, until Vietnam invaded in 1979."
"Article 20 of the 1976 Constitution of Democratic Kampuchea guaranteed religious freedom, but it also declared that "all reactionary religions that are detrimental to Democratic Kampuchea and the Kampuchean People are strictly forbidden." About 85 percent of the population follows the Theravada school of Buddhism. The country's 40,000 to 60,000 Buddhist monks, regarded by the regime as social parasites, were defrocked and forced into labor brigades. Many monks were executed; temples and pagodas were destroyed or turned into storehouses or jails. Images of the Buddha were defaced and dumped into rivers and lakes. People who were discovered praying or expressing religious sentiments were often killed. The Christian and Muslim communities also were even more persecuted, as they were labelled as part of a pro-Western cosmopolitan sphere, hindering Cambodian culture and society. The Roman Catholic cathedral of Phnom Penh was completely razed. The Khmer Rouge forced Muslims to eat pork, which they regard as an abomination. Many of those who refused were killed. Christian clergy and Muslim imams were executed.

The Khmer Rouge's treatment of minorities seems to have varied from group to group. The Vietnamese endured the greatest suffering. Tens of thousands were raped, mutilated, and murdered in regime-organized massacres. Most of the survivors fled to Vietnam. The Cham, a Muslim minority who are the descendants of migrants from the old state of Champa, were forced to adopt the Khmer language and customs. Their communities, which traditionally had existed apart from Khmer villages, were broken up. Forty thousand Cham were killed in two districts of Kampong Cham Province alone. Thai minorities living near the Thai border also were persecuted."
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Ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Kampuchea

angelica wrote:

What I find interesting is that Richard Dawkins of the original article is an evolutionary scientist. According to levels of human development at this time, large numbers of people on this planet are clearly at a stage in their evolution where they predominantly follow or believe mythical-order belief systems over logical, reasoning systems. We can blame and morally judge all we want, making these people wrong. The FACT of the matter is that they are exactly where evolution itself has put them. Humans go through developmental stages as a whole and individually. If a large chunk of humanity has not passed through mythical-order developmental stages (as in religious fundamentalism/moral majority) naturally, then scientifically speaking and beyond moral, value judgments, evolution itself is accountable. Humans can only understand the worldview level they are currently in developmentally. They cannot live from stages of evolution that they are not yet at. Furthermore, humans must go from one stage of development to the next--one cannot skip any stage in processes of personal transcendence. Those who view life through magical/mythical/hard-rules stages over logical visionary stages are exactly where they've been designed to be--by nature, herself. Maybe it's our personal moral judgments, religious OR athiest, wherein we make others "wrong" and that happen to depict what level of development WE ARE AT that is the REAL problem. Evolution just is what and where it is at this time, beyond petty human judgment. To say it is religion or athiesm causing problems throughout history seems to me to naively say the tail wags the dog.

Collin wrote:

It may not take away individual responsibility, but it can make people believe the horrible things they are doing are good things...

surferdude wrote:

I love you. and wish I was smart enough to have gotten to this point without your help.

surferdude wrote:

Using Cosmo's example of Hitler, please explain how the non-religipus German folks fell in line. People will use any excuse to support their deeds. Some people on this board follow "Ishmeal"-ism or so it seems, some "Ed"-ism.

Religion never takes away an individual's responsibility for using their own reasoning. At least no more so than family, sport team or political party affiliation, or the neighbour you live in does. Joining any group never takes away individual responsibility, it can only make you more easily swayed by group think or mob mentality. Now unless you think every sort of group should be done away with then you are unfiarly scapegoating religion.

Usign some of the reasoning on this board regarding religion we'd be able to hate blacks because they have a higher crime rate in the US so we could surmise that black people have done more harm than good. Then we could look at China, look at all the poverty and poorness created by the manufacturing jobs exported to China. Let's hate them too and wish they never existed, the world would be a better place without them.

angelica wrote:

And, yikes! You think a parent should be held responsible for what an adult child does?

Collin wrote:

That's not what I said.