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[Micro102]

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you are saying, can you rephrase it?

Ok.

Let's take my example for a highly religiously motivated action, anti-abortion terrorism. Now the primary cause of this is clearly religious, but if you examine actual cases of it the situation becomes far more complex. First, belief that fetal life is sacred is not explicit anywhere within the religious doctrines and in fact there is nothing inherently religious about the belief. Which is why some of the most heinous acts of anti-abortion terrorism could be performed by someone who "prefer(s) Nietzche to the Bible." Further, the belief that abortion is condemned by God does not seem sufficient to motivate people to commit such crimes, rather there seem to be political motivators as well and people who commit these acts are often disaffected from society and bitter exhibiting antisocial tendencies and in some cases psychosis. Most of these individuals are troubled, such as Scott Philip Roeder who came to religion through his anti-government sentiments and not the other way around.

Which is to say, that the causes of such actions are so complex that to suggest that even the majority of them would not have happened if religion was not in the picture is to oversimplify. In most cases we have absolutely no way of knowing, but it's worth pointing out that the majority of those cases were property crimes, however in many of the most severe cases it seems likely that the person was unstable already, whether or not they were so unstable as to commit their crimes is also, however, impossible to say.

As for the second point, it has nothing to do with excuses and everything to do with human nature. In terms of governmental atrocities? I do not think they would be lessened at all because nationalism will still exist, and nationalism has been linked with nearly every case of governmental religious violence I can think of and has shown itself just as capable of travesty as religion is on it's own. In terms of terrorist acts, there would likely be some dropoff, but perhaps not as much as you'd expect. Because, as above, even without religion many of the factors involved in such acts will remain, and those factors which are religious are often not directly religious (as in an explicit consequence of religious belief, in general, not of any particular religious beliefs) or inherently religious (as in requiring religion to exist). The closest to these I can think of that is inherently religious is belief in an afterlife, and it is still possible without religion, at least under my definition of religion (which is that supernatural beliefs are not inherently religious). Which means that in absence of explicitly religious factors the factors that were most important to the terrorist actions would remain the same. I do not think there would be any change in violent or non-violent civilian crime.

So, your saying that religious ideas have no effect on the actions of people? What if I flipped that around? Any positive actions made under the name of religion would not change if religion disappeared. Doesn't that mean that there is no point to religion? But then how do you deal with the religiously based laws and other damages that religion has caused, without removing or severely weakening religion?

Sorry if I came off that way. I feel it is more plausible that religion was not the main factor for Hitlers actions, but just a very strong tool to sway the masses to accept his actions. But I don't discount the possibility that he did this for religious reasons.

When I said God was backing it, I was showing the viewpoint that religious believers would have. No, one thing did not cause the holocaust, but without religion, I don't think it would have happened. Religion is a very strong force. You have a massive community who all share similar beliefs, and the major religions believe there is an all knowing, morally correct being watching over you. There is no large, heavily assimilated community connected to the idea of a superior race or anything like that. Maybe to the discrimination towards Jews at the time, but then how much of that was due to religion?

How do you mean due to religion? Because in the strictest sense that would mean "related to the religious beliefs of the Jews or the perpetrators of the crimes against them" in which case I'd say that antisemitism has historically had little to do with religious beliefs, with one particularly prominent exception. To support that, just look at antisemitism during the Black Death, clearly not religiously motivated at all. The only case where I can think of antisemitism being explicitly linked to religious belief is the one where Christians blame the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus. As far as I'm aware that hasn't really manifested as a motivator for wide scale antisemitic violence, but I could easily be wrong on that score.

You can use that definition if you want to. I'm saying that I don't know at what level religion had and affect on the discrimination towards Jews, but if there was religious influence, then I see no greater force behind the holocaust then religion. Even if there was no religious influence, I am still convinced that without religion it all never would of happened.

Also, you're wrong about there not being an assimilated community based on racial superiority. In fact there are plenty of those (though they are not popular on the scale that religion is) and further nationalism (which is popular on the scale religion is), a belief system very similar to the idea of racial superiority, also has such groups. It's sad, but I don't think the Nazis even needed to use religious propaganda to get people on their side, certainly they attracted some people they otherwise might not have, but I think it would have been sufficient without that. It's also worth pointing out that in the late thirties Pope Pius explicitly denounced Nazi racist ideology and acceptance of Nazism even among German clergy was not universal. If the Pope tells you one thing and the Archbishop another people are forced to conclude on their own, and I don't think any factors that would have made them conclude on the side of antisemitism were related to religion. They were related to seeing wealthy Jews, they were related to cultural tensions, they look different, talk different, act different, and they were related to the astonishing breadth of Nazi antisemitism which took myriad forms through just as many justifications.

That's why i said heavily integrated. I can't find any racial superiority group that even came close to the christian population.

As for Pope Pius, did he continue to denounce the Nazi policy while WW2 was going on?

[fqllve]

What if I flipped that around? Any positive actions made under the name of religion would not change if religion disappeared. Doesn't that mean that there is no point to religion? But then how do you deal with the religiously based laws and other damages that religion has caused, without removing or severely weakening religion?

What I will say is this, any good that religion has done could have been done through means other than religion. But the opposite is also true. Religion has caused no harm that could not have been caused without religion.

Well, if you did that I'd have to agree with you. I think human behavior shaped religion, not the other way around. By which I don't mean that religion hasn't been used to control human behavior, but it didn't create anything that wasn't already there, including the good things.

As for removing religion's power, well yeah I think that religion should be as far removed from politics as possible. Politics is a mess and we don't need to complicate it. How easy or possible that is is another story.

You can use that definition if you want to. I'm saying that I don't know at what level religion had and affect on the discrimination towards Jews, but if there was religious influence, then I see no greater force behind the holocaust then religion. Even if there was no religious influence, I am still convinced that without religion it all never would of happened.

We'll have to disagree there then, because I think eugenics and cultural bigotry were the primary motivating factors. In fact I don't think the Holocaust could have happened without the idea of eugenics.

That's why i said heavily integrated. I can't find any racial superiority group that even came close to the christian population.

As for Pope Pius, did he continue to denounce the Nazi policy while WW2 was going on?

No. Because he died. His successor, Pius the XII's, actions during WW2 and the Holocaust are controversial and probably best not to get into. Let's just leave it at he clearly wasn't supportive of the Nazis or their racism, but he didn't openly censure them, much to everyone's dismay.

And I know that's why you said that, that's why I brought up nationalism. Especially since Nazism itself was a powerful and integrated social structure for promoting nationalism.

[Descan]

Religion caused the Holocaust in that, without Christianity, there would have been no moratorium on Christian people banking. There would have been no segregation of Jews, because religious Jews would not be a thing. So there would be no one to genocide! And there would not be as much animosity towards them even if they were, somehow, a people!

... Uh, does that make sense?

[Micro102]

Yeah, except that you don't have to be a Jew that believes in god. You can be a cultural Jew.


I didn't really think Bay12 would be able to dissect how the Holocaust stated. 

[Descan]

But would there be cultural Jews if there was, and never was, Judaism?

And would there be a stigma against them if there was no such thing as Islam or Christianity?

[Pnx]

Yeah, except that you don't have to be a Jew that believes in god. You can be a cultural Jew.


I didn't really think Bay12 would be able to dissect how the Holocaust stated. 

I can give you a pretty thorough dissection actually, although the full explanation is pretty damn lengthy. The simpler version is that it essentially starts with the Catholic church's policies during the middle ages which forbade Usury (which at the time they defined as giving or taking loans with interest) and said that they people should hate on people who had lots of money and didn't give it to them. Judaism didn't have such restrictions on money lending, there is this thing in the Torah which essentially says they can't lend with interest to people who can't afford to pay the interest, but that's a little beside the point and generally didn't stop them becoming money lenders. Since most people really need credit to start or expand a business, if you were Jewish you often had a distinct advantage over someone who was being a play-by-the-church-rules Catholic. Later the Catholic church lifted the restriction on lending with interest, and said that it was only if you lended with excessive interest, but by then modern bank loans were becoming a big thing, and their policies had sort of led to Jewish people doing really well at it.

Other stuff that really helped Jewish people prosper as businessmen was the strong community, which was defined by a mentality of "We Jews must stick together", where Jewish people would tend to do well by each other, offer each other better deals, help each other out when things were going badly, that sort of stuff. They did this mainly because Christians hated them so much, and sticking together was how they'd survived. There was also Jewish law, in particular the thing where Rabbi's act as notaries for business deals. If you had a deal you wanted to make, you could bring it before the Rabbi who would bear witness to the deal and it's terms, which made it much easier for Jewish people to trust a contract amongst each other, because if someone tried to go back on a deal, the Rabbi would be all like, "Joshua, you promised before god you'd give him three baskets a week!"

So yeah, all of this lead to Jewish people in Germany during the depression doing a hell of a lot better than most regular Germans. When the markets collapsed and most German businessmen went broke, the Jewish businessmen used investments made in other countries, or asked family members from other countries to back them up, and stayed in business. They then tended to prefer hiring Jewish people over regular Germans, and would often pay them good wages, because hey, there's no way you're letting your cousin's wife's brother live in the gutter, right?

Then this one douchebag with a comb-over and a Charlie Chaplain style moustache came along and took control of the country. He had a bunch of grievances against Jewish people, he claimed that he had been discriminated against in terms of employment, and refused entry into an art school by Jews, these may or may not have been legitimate grievances, anyway, he took control and... well I'm sure you know the rest of the story.

And yes, that's my simpler explanation.

[Leafsnail]

Antisemitism wasn't exactly a new idea from the Nazis or Hitler.  Rather they acted as part of an anti-Jewish sentiment that had been going on for centuries (see: pogroms) which had more recently gotten stronger during the Great Depression.

[Starver]

Some sort of Grand Old Dame of the British establishment was on the radio a few days ago.  She had been evacuated to the US during WW2.  She was 1/4 Jewish (but not obviously so) and found a lot of anti-Jewish sentiment where she was hosted.  In particular she became friends in her new school with a young girl who was Jewish (let's say she had the surname Rosenburg, for the sake of labelling her even further).  An adult (teachers, probably) took her to one side, one day and said "Now dear, I don't think you want to play with that Rosenburg girl do you?"  Our hard-headed evacuee of course not only ignored this, but actually hung around with her more.

(And there was anti-Semitic, or at least Jew-intolerance, here in the UK as well.  For reasons already given, Jews have sometimes more than stuck out in society and been seen to be getting the best deal when there's generally hard times going round, whether deliberately or otherwise (whether involved in these apparently closed-shop practices or otherwise!).  They're not the only peoples.  "Pakis"[1] famously become the small-shopkeepers of the nation.  Yada yada Work Ethic, yada yada (extended) Family Business, yada yada Open All Hours (and on Sundays, when and where the law allowed).  Newsagents, off-licences, you name it.  That's the stereotype, at least, and some less than enlightened 'native' Anglos resented this (some still do, I imagine).)


Erm, anyway.  I wasn't really going to go into this line of discussion, but skip to the prejudice against the Irish as well.  And even within mainland Britain (or even England, like northerners going to London and Londoners going north) those who stand out (as do a lot of people apparently "not natively of this area" for some reason or other) and do well don't tend to get a good reception,

'Traveller' types (maybe Romany, maybe not) are pretty perpetually "not from around here" (given they're not technically permanently from anywhere).  There's perhaps more prejudice from their (perceived) lower capability of success, and taking on the "untouchable" jobs (manual work, scrap dealing) and times where some dodgy or downright illegal activities are ascribed to them (correctly or otherwise), but there's a lot of stereotypes that in all of which, not all of which are applicable to all those of a given type (to unknowable degrees).  But seizing upon these stereotypes one can (consciously or unconsciously) build up a prejudice for oneself or for others you're trying to control.

I've no doubt The Godwinated One had some grievances (perceived, at least, maybe no more than slightly justified and possible less than that) and wasn't utterly misleading those he ingratiated to his particular worldview, but he sold a philosophy to people who believed it (or came to believe it... or went along with it for an easier life).  If it wasn't the Jews it would have been the many other 'minorities' caught up in his policies.  About the only one that somewhat failed to grab attention was the directive against the weak in body and mind, given that a significant number of German families had a family member of their own who came under that category.  Much easier to target "Those people who aren't anything to do with us", at least on such a personal level.


(But this is very little to do with religion (or atheism), IMO.  I don't know how I dragged myself into this bit of the discussion, I thought I'd be staying out of it.  Forgive me if in my haste to gloss over issues I've left something of apparent insensitivity in my above missive.  I consider myself a tolerant chap, and if I've left an insulting term or description unappended by "...as some people might say" or similar then I beg you to consider that it is my bad wording at fault, not personal prejudices.)


[1] A prerogative[2] for people of Pakistani origin, here in the UK, but applied to those of non-Pakistani origin, as well, with complete disregard to accuracy or any form of respect for those concerned...  but for argument's sake let's assume it's Pakistani Muslims and skip over all the Indian Hindus and other people "of that sort of colour" who also fell(/fall) under that label.

[2] edit: whoops, meant "derogatory" (and followed by "term", or something?), I may have let my spill-chucker choose the wrong word after a typo/bad edit...

[G-Flex]

First, belief that fetal life is sacred is not explicit anywhere within the religious doctrines and in fact there is nothing inherently religious about the belief.

There's nothing inherently religious about the belief that, since the soul enters the body at conception, and a soul defines a person, the destruction of the embryo is in effect killing a person? How can you say this?

[fqllve]

First, belief that fetal life is sacred is not explicit anywhere within the religious doctrines and in fact there is nothing inherently religious about the belief.

There's nothing inherently religious about the belief that, since the soul enters the body at conception, and a soul defines a person, the destruction of the embryo is in effect killing a person? How can you say this?

...well obviously that is inherently religious. But I didn't say anything about souls or conception or any of that because that's not what I was talking about. Of course, sacred kinda makes it an example of false parallelism, I should have said "First, belief that destruction of fetal life is murder. . ."

[10ebbor10]

First, belief that fetal life is sacred is not explicit anywhere within the religious doctrines and in fact there is nothing inherently religious about the belief.

There's nothing inherently religious about the belief that, since the soul enters the body at conception, and a soul defines a person, the destruction of the embryo is in effect killing a person? How can you say this?

The new Testament is awfully silent on the matter. I'm pretty sure it doesn't mention when it considers a being to live.

And in fact, when you think of it, what is abortion doing? Is the child alive, or is it not. What makes the arbitraty definition between a child with age X weeks, and a child with ages X+1 week. When does it stop being abortion, and where does murder start? I'm not going to judge anyone, but it's a thing we should think about.

But would there be cultural Jews if there was, and never was, Judaism?

And would there be a stigma against them if there was no such thing as Islam or Christianity?

You could be something similair. Just need to be a group that sticks together somewhat isolated from society and easily identifiable by a common trait.  There's the Romani people(also known as gypsies) and much other ethnic groups who were/are also targetted from being different, and this time without religious reasons. Judaism was just a very large group of these, and their religion allowed them to keep together.

Considering other minorities can be discriminated against without religious reasons, I'm pretty sure there will/would have been.

Snip

Other points for the antisemitism can be found in WW I, (the person who signed the treaty was a Jew) and the years after. During the interbellum, some major figures in the governement were Jews (during their aforementioned expertise in financial matters) and in fact, if one of them hadn't been eliminated it's unlikely World war II would have been a fact.

Someone murdered someone else while wearing a party hat.

The is not representitive of my argument, since I am finding an example where religion was the cause, not just that someone doing the crime was religious (someome murdered someome because of the party hat, not just happened to be wearing it. If someome murdered directly due to wearing a party hat, then wearing a party hat would sometimes cause murder).

I am not trying to show that religion is bad overall, or even that there is a correlation between religion and bad things.

Besides,

Recent research on the rationale of suicide bombing has identified both religious and sociopolitical motivations. Those who cite religious factors as an important influence note that religion provides the framework because the bombers believe they are acting in the name of Islam and will be rewarded as martyrs.

I also can not find any information on Causation !=> Correlation on the internet (all the results are the other way around, unsuprisingly.). I would be literally interested in a link on an explanation, since with respect to Correlation !=> Causation (which we know is right, and is the only think I have to go on) (A !=> B) !=> (B !=> A).

Got a point there, I suppose. It's not good to base moral systems on the litteral, fundamentalist intrepretations of a text.

Hold your horses. Correlation doesn't justify causation.(Yeah, got it the other way around I believe) It might hint at Causation, but it doesn't always imply it. Hence my paper hat argument. I was wearing a hat when I killed somebody, but that doesn't imply that wearing hats cause people to murder each other.

Your version of the paper hat story says that Causation means Causation, which it does. The argument is most clear when used with statistics. (90% of all murders happens by people with paper hats on. Either paper hats causes murder, murder causes paper hats, an unknown thing causes murder and paper hats or both are completely unrelated)

How the hell can you say that religion is just an excuse used and not a cause? Do you really think that all these people have ulterior motives and just use religion as an excuse? That they don't actually believe? What type of conspiracy world are you living in? I've stated a whole lot of sensible motives. Religion is often molded by the society it's founded in, so you need to look for the problems there, not with the religion. What kind of conspiracy world are you living in that you believe that there's a giant organised system causing evil on large scales, while being supported by large parts of the population and justifying it's actions by stating it's doing just the reverse of what you're accusing it of.


As for Hitler...

1) Yes, religion was the justification. I don't care whether he was religious or not, the soldiers and common people believed what they were doing was right because of religion.Not anymore than that they believed they were the master race, and that the Jews were bad(And not because their religion said so.).

2) Why the hell would he also target Catholics?Because he was a Lutheran Christian. They have radically different visions on certain parts, but there was no real animousity at that point in time. He did target mormons for example, as well as several other minorities. Not because the religion said him to do so, but because they were easy targets.

3) How the hell does fundamentalism increase because of atheism vs religion? Do you really need to ask that question? If people get the feeling they're being threatened/ repressed, you automatically get a polirazation of beliefs. The middle ground dissappears, and you're left with fundamentalist and radicalization.

I am starting to get the feeling that you don't know what you're talking about.Trust me, I have that feeling a lot around here.

Yes you've stated a bunch of sensible reasons that people could commit horrible acts. So what? How does that automatically make it so religious based horrrible acts are not something that should be focused on? Or are you saying that these problems are already going to happen and religion just is tacked on? And yes religion is founded on the society it was created by. Hence the Bible was based off the culture of a bunch of pillaging and raping Jewish people. And now it is a book that people worship as the word of God. To deal with the problem of that society is to dismiss the Bible as not the word of God, as just an immoral book. And I agree with this, but do you really think that the current religions would stand if that happened? This is what I mean by getting rid of religion.

Yes, But hitler believing that there should be a master race is also a huge factor. But it doesn't excuse religion's role in this. What do you think would sway more people to allow mass murdering to occur? "God wishes this", or "this race is superior"?

Jews WERE targetted mainly because of religion. Hitler choose them and other weak targets. They were weak because they were discriminated against, because of their religion. And religion OS what made people turn the other cheek to the slaughter.

Yes, those problems would happen anyway.

I don't remember much pillaging and raping going on when the Bible was being written. At that point, the Romans were firmly in charge of the Jewish terretory. Remember that the Bible is a book over the life of Jezus, which at that time must have been a pretty amazing figure. So amazing, that the writers of the gospels went to methaphors and symbolism to explain it. The strongest and most wellknown symbolics known in those time where to be found in the Jewish religion. Hence the inclusion of the old Testament in the Bible.

This argument is supported by several early- medieval writers, and by much Christian art. You constantly see parts of the life of Jezus being pictured next to parts of the Old testament. Hence the old testament provided the background/ foreshadowed the life of Christ. It's not primarly intended to be a consecutive story. I'm also firmly against the censorship and such that would imply. Provided with proper background, the Bible ( and several others books, even Mein Kampf and such) are perfectly fine. I get it if you want to crack down on certain intrepretations, but what you want to do implies a lot of censorship on old and contemporary works. ((Also, it's completely impossible, and forbidding things is absolutely not going to help. It's the easiest way to see [Insert nation here] go up in flames))

This race is superior is a very strong argument. You're ridiculizing it, but psychological experiments have been done, and found out just what horrible things you can let people do if you control their main influence of information. Hitler controlled radio, television, everything. What he didn't control where the churches, who went against it as much as they could. (Read, didn't openly support him. Most priests aren't crazy.)

Jews weren't targetted mainly because of religion, they just made an easy target. If you look at the different people Hitler ordered to kill, you don't see a religious motive for most of them, but you do see them fit into his vision of an uberrace.

[Owlbread]

No matter how much you debate religion and the existence of God, you are going to go around in circles forever because it's bullshit created by our own minds long ago.

[10ebbor10]

No matter how much you debate religion and the existence of God, you are going to go around in circles forever because it's bullshit created by our own minds long ago.

Thank you for your opinion. I appreciate the effort, and will defend your right to say, but please go be incooperative somewhere else.

_{Yes, the cynisism and hypocricy is intended}

[Hiiri]

No matter how much you debate religion and the existence of God, you are going to go around in circles forever because it's bullshit created by our own minds long ago.

Thank you for your opinion. I appreciate the effort, and will defend your right to say, but please go be incooperative somewhere else.

At least it was constructive.

[kaijyuu]

Dogmatic assertions of axioms counts as constructive?