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Killed in the Name of Belief or Killed Without Belief

LowDown

LowDown

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In response to the frequent criticism brought against religion by new atheists that religion inspires people to kill each other:

Killing belief.JPG

Frequently the argument takes the form of "there is something about religion that causes people to be violent." But there is always some dodge concerning the observation that there is apparently something about the lack of belief that causes people to be even more murderous.

In fact, there is something common to both believers and non believers that causes violence, and that is human nature.
 
One could argue that the personality cults of Mao and Stalin (or faith in their brand of Communism) is itself a form of belief.
 
I suggest that it is fanaticism that motivates people to kill. The fanaticism may arise from religion but is equally likely (and more deadly) to arise from political beliefs as noted by the right side of the chart.

It's too bad the chart doesn't include the Nazi holocaust.
 
StillBallin75 said:
One could argue that the personality cults of Mao and Stalin (or faith in their brand of Communism) is itself a form of belief.
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In North Korea, they worship Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. If that's not a religion, I don't know what is.

 
LowDown said:
In fact, there is something common to both believers and non believers that causes violence, and that is human nature.
Click to expand...

I agree that it's human nature, but people do get themselves whipped up into a religious fury and do evil things in the name of God.

It neither proves that there is or is not a God.
 
LowDown said:
In response to the frequent criticism brought against religion by new atheists that religion inspires people to kill each other:

View attachment 67145613

Frequently the argument takes the form of "there is something about religion that causes people to be violent." But there is always some dodge concerning the observation that there is apparently something about the lack of belief that causes people to be even more murderous.

In fact, there is something common to both believers and non believers that causes violence, and that is human nature.
Click to expand...

This is like a how to on how to lie with charts. Let's look at a couple methods used:

1: incomplete data. Where is the 30 Years' War, one of the most destructive in European history, and fought largely for religious dominance? Between 3 and 11.5 million estimated dead. French wars of Religion, between 2 and 4 million dead. Nigerien Civil War, between 1 and 3 million dead. Thousands of others over history.

2: misleading data. For example Stalinism. Atheism was a small part of Stalinism. If you are going to include that, you have to include all the murders, all the purges, all the killing done by religious governments.

Further, your logic is flawed. Religion is used as a motivation for a large number of deaths. The fact that people are also killed for other reasons does not make it any less true that religion is a motivation for millions of deaths across history.
 
StillBallin75 said:
One could argue that the personality cults of Mao and Stalin (or faith in their brand of Communism) is itself a form of belief.
Click to expand...

That is correct. The declaration of atheism did not make the people's urge to believe and follow the leader disappear. It simply helped the new gods (demanding human sacrifice on unimaginable scale) to monopolize the market.

(Even in the appearances...Remember the parades on the Red Square? Elders standing on the weird ziggurat containing the mummy of Mass Murderer # 1 - who is supposed to be "more alive than all the living" - people marching by, chanting nonsensical scared mantras like "Finish five-year plan in four years"?...)
 
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Redress said:
This is like a how to on how to lie with charts. Let's look at a couple methods used:

1: incomplete data. Where is the 30 Years' War, one of the most destructive in European history, and fought largely for religious dominance? Between 3 and 11.5 million estimated dead. French wars of Religion, between 2 and 4 million dead. Nigerien Civil War, between 1 and 3 million dead. Thousands of others over history.
Click to expand...

Nope, the examples of religious violence were chosen because there was a clear and convincing primary religious cause. Wars like these examples have multiple underlying causes of which religion is probably minor.

2: misleading data. For example Stalinism. Atheism was a small part of Stalinism. If you are going to include that, you have to include all the murders, all the purges, all the killing done by religious governments.
Click to expand...

Nope. It was a lack of any belief that makes it germane. An official absence that was unique among nations and extended to oppression of religious citizens. And I think that most reasonable people would agree that this absence and all that it implied about the character of those leaders had a lot to do with how the USSR approached its problems with recalcitrant groups of citizens. The same with the other 3 communist/leftist governments.

Which officially atheistic government has not murdered tens to hundreds of thousands of its own citizens? Cuba? Nope. Albania? Nope. Afghanistan? Nope. Romania? Nope. And so on...

Further, your logic is flawed. Religion is used as a motivation for a large number of deaths. The fact that people are also killed for other reasons does not make it any less true that religion is a motivation for millions of deaths across history.
Click to expand...

No, your logic is flawed, and you seem to want to cherry pick the evidence rather massively. Religion can motivate people to various things both good and bad. That religion can sometimes be seen to motivate people to do bad things does not mean that it does not more often motivate people to the good or keeps them from doing bad. With atheism it is a lack of that motivation.
 
LowDown said:
Nope, the examples of religious violence were chosen because there was a clear and convincing primary religious cause. Wars like these examples have multiple underlying causes of which religion is probably minor.
Click to expand...

So you just want to cherrypick data. The primary cause of all those I listed was religion. Hell, if you look at the history of Europe, fighting between religious groups was nearly continuous. Of course since that would prove your point wrong, you don't include that.

Nope. It was a lack of any belief that makes it germane. An official absence that was unique among nations and extended to oppression of religious citizens. And I think that most reasonable people would agree that this absence and all that it implied about the character of those leaders had a lot to do with how the USSR approached its problems with recalcitrant groups of citizens. The same with the other 3 communist/leftist governments.

Which officially atheistic government has not murdered tens to hundreds of thousands of its own citizens? Cuba? Nope. Albania? Nope. Afghanistan? Nope. Romania? Nope. And so on...
Click to expand...

Oh, so now you want to compare to anything that might be remotely not religious. And the funny part is is that you really do not see the disconnect.

No, your logic is flawed, and you seem to want to cherry pick the evidence rather massively. Religion can motivate people to various things both good and bad. That religion can sometimes be seen to motivate people to do bad things does not mean that it does not more often motivate people to the good or keeps them from doing bad. With atheism it is a lack of that motivation.
Click to expand...

Religion can motivate people in both good and bad ways. Atheism rarely motivates people at all. Your attempt to discount religious violence by saying "well, others do bad things too" is still a failed attempt at logic.
 
Cyrylek said:
That is correct. The declaration of atheism did not make the people's urge to believe and follow the leader disappear. It simply helped the new gods (demanding human sacrifice on unimaginable scale) to monopolize the market.

(Even in the appearances...Remember the parades on the Red Square? Elders standing on the weird ziggurat containing the mummy of Mass Murderer # 1 - who is supposed to be "more alive than all the living" - people marching by, chanting nonsensical scared mantras like "Finish five-year plan in four years"?...)
Click to expand...

That's what I'd call a lame dodge on the part of atheists. Whenever atheism is associated with good things then the good things are due to atheism. Whenever atheism is associated with bad things then there's no connection between the bad things and atheism. Is that about the way it goes?

With the USSR, Red China, etc., the connection between official state atheism and what those regimes did with their recalcitrant citizens is very clear, at least to reasonable people. The moral tradition providing restraint was simply absent. Nothing had been provided to replace it.
 
Redress said:
So you just want to cherrypick data. The primary cause of all those I listed was religion. Hell, if you look at the history of Europe, fighting between religious groups was nearly continuous. Of course since that would prove your point wrong, you don't include that.
Click to expand...

I don't include it because it's not correct. You want to claim every war fought in Europe was a religious war. Almost all wars have the same mix of motivations for which religion is just the ketchup poured over everything to greater or lesser degrees.

Oh, so now you want to compare to anything that might be remotely not religious. And the funny part is is that you really do not see the disconnect.
Click to expand...

Ok, so then provide an example of an officially atheistic government that did not murder its own citizens en mass. It all seems pretty tightly connected.

Religion can motivate people in both good and bad ways. Atheism rarely motivates people at all. Your attempt to discount religious violence by saying "well, others do bad things too" is still a failed attempt at logic.
Click to expand...

Atheism rarely motivates at all, including not motivating them to refrain from killing large numbers of their fellow citizens, apparently. We will have to wait to see what happens when increasing secularism and atheism makes its way into Western governments. Based on what I can see of the proponents of the New Atheism I'm not optimistic.
 
LowDown said:
I don't include it because it's not correct. You want to claim every war fought in Europe was a religious war. Almost all wars have the same mix of motivations for which religion is just the ketchup poured over everything to greater or lesser degrees.



Ok, so then provide an example of an officially atheistic government that did not murder its own citizens en mass. It all seems pretty tightly connected.
Click to expand...

So religious people killing others for religious reasons don't count, but an atheistic government killing people for reasons other than atheism does. It's hilarious that you do not see the disconnect.

Atheism rarely motivates at all, including not motivating them to refrain from killing large numbers of their fellow citizens, apparently. We will have to wait to see what happens when increasing secularism and atheism makes its way into Western governments. Based on what I can see of the proponents of the New Atheism I'm not optimistic.
Click to expand...

So a big part of your problem is you do not understand the concepts of cause and effect. Plus ignorance of history, and a lack of logic, and a willingness to cherry pick. Well done!
 
LowDown said:
That's what I'd call a lame dodge on the part of atheists. Whenever atheism is associated with good things then the good things are due to atheism. Whenever atheism is associated with bad things then there's no connection between the bad things and atheism. Is that about the way it goes?

With the USSR, Red China, etc., the connection between official state atheism and what those regimes did with their recalcitrant citizens is very clear, at least to reasonable people. The moral tradition providing restraint was simply absent. Nothing had been provided to replace it.
Click to expand...

As Chesterton said, "Take away the faith in God, and people will not start believing in nothing, they will start believing in anything".

Now, I am an atheist. I am doing my best to suppress my primitive, primal urge to believe - in imaginary friends or in all-too-real political supermen...

But I am also painfully aware that not everyone on the planet is making the same kind of effort.

At the risk of sounding elitist like hell, I'd rather have them discharge their "God instinct" on something relatively tame and benign - like Easter and Christmas ceremonies - than on building guillotines and nuclear missile silos.
 
LowDown said:
But there is always some dodge concerning the observation that there is apparently something about the lack of belief that causes people to be even more murderous.
Click to expand...

I don't think it logically follows that the lack of belief is what caused the violence.
 
Anagram said:
I don't think it logically follows that the lack of belief is what caused the violence.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It is a fanatical belief that causes violence and, as Lowdown's chart shows, fanatical political beliefs have killed more people than fanatical religious beliefs - and that includes our current wars against political Islam (as opposed to religious Islam).
 
Anagram said:
I don't think it logically follows that the lack of belief is what caused the violence.
Click to expand...

Not the lack of belief - but faith (as fervent and blind as ever) attached to new idols, as opposed to safe and tame ones, worn off and turned into metaphors and allegories by centuries of ritualized worship.
 
Moderator's Warning:
After Mod discussion, moved to Philosophy.
 
Yet another utter failure to understand the situation. In those cases where religion was involved on the chart, they killed people specifically because of their religion, they claimed that they were doing the work of God or that God had told them to kill people. In the others, the killings had nothing whatsoever to do with atheism, except for the fact that the people who ordered the killing happened to be atheists. You might as well blame mustaches for the murders, just because Stalin had one.

It's blatantly dishonest to keep pushing this nonsense. It's just plain wrong.
 
Cephus said:
It's blatantly dishonest to keep pushing this nonsense. It's just plain wrong.
Click to expand...

Since when have theists cared about being honest? They need to wage their new war against atheists; probably won't be satisfied till they're burning us at the stake.
 
The crusades may be misleading. If the Europeans had been allowed safe passage in and out of the Holy Lands so that they could make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, much of the slaughter could have been prevented. The desire to take Jerusalem was a desire to be able to visit it safely and the efforts to prevent them from doing that is what amped the situation up.
 
Redress said:
So religious people killing others for religious reasons don't count, but an atheistic government killing people for reasons other than atheism does. It's hilarious that you do not see the disconnect.
Click to expand...

No, it's that atheists apparently don't have a reason not to kill people. That this is missing makes it of overarching importance. Apparently belief was the only thing keeping them from doing such things since without it they kill with great gusto.



So a big part of your problem is you do not understand the concepts of cause and effect. Plus ignorance of history, and a lack of logic, and a willingness to cherry pick. Well done!
Click to expand...

You've opted to bluster your way through. So be it.
 
Cyrylek said:
As Chesterton said, "Take away the faith in God, and people will not start believing in nothing, they will start believing in anything".

Now, I am an atheist. I am doing my best to suppress my primitive, primal urge to believe - in imaginary friends or in all-too-real political supermen...

But I am also painfully aware that not everyone on the planet is making the same kind of effort.

At the risk of sounding elitist like hell, I'd rather have them discharge their "God instinct" on something relatively tame and benign - like Easter and Christmas ceremonies - than on building guillotines and nuclear missile silos.
Click to expand...

There is wisdom in what you say.
 
Anagram said:
I don't think it logically follows that the lack of belief is what caused the violence.
Click to expand...

I'd say lack of belief doesn't cause violence. More like the traditional taboos and rules are not there to prevent it.
 
Cyrylek said:
As Chesterton said, "Take away the faith in God, and people will not start believing in nothing, they will start believing in anything".

Now, I am an atheist. I am doing my best to suppress my primitive, primal urge to believe - in imaginary friends or in all-too-real political supermen...

But I am also painfully aware that not everyone on the planet is making the same kind of effort.

At the risk of sounding elitist like hell, I'd rather have them discharge their "God instinct" on something relatively tame and benign - like Easter and Christmas ceremonies - than on building guillotines and nuclear missile silos.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the Christians built the guillotines and nuclear missile silos.

It isn't hard to be moral. I'm probably well more moral than most theists. Anti-abortion, anti-death sentence, anti-war, pro-human. Even in today's day and age, how many Christians are cheering our wars, our death penalties? Kill kill, hate hate, murder murder, mutilate! Particularly in America, atheists cannot get elected. So all the violence and hate and death is being brought down by....Christians.
 
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