OT Human kindness: was OT-LIBERTARIAN

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/6/03 11:56:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> The fact that a lot of the bloodiest

> wars are started by religious factions who espouse " kindness "

> also doesn't argue for it. In fact, if there is a division between

> " help the helpless " and " ignore the helpless " I see it on

> lines of gender ... women tend to want to help the helpless,

> regardless of their politics or religion

It should be kept in mind though that perhaps the most horrific of all of

these were the officially atheist Soviet Communists, who killed 30 million

people, mostly their own, in large part simply out of their blood-thirsty

atheism.

Not that you said that atheists can't be murderous but just pointing it out

because atheist war-mongering is frequently overlooked in favor of pointing out

religious war-mongering.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>That's it; no more preaching. But we simply can't have our cake (using

>spelt flour and stevia, of course) and eat it too. In the absence of God

>morality is meaningless.

>

>Glenn

Oh, you just open up a whole can of worms there! I would argue that

one reason people join churches (rather than just worshipping

at home) is that we have a very strong built-in social component,

esp. women. Your average aethiest woman cannot leave a stray

hurt dog in the street, much less a homeless child. (A drunk

guy she'd probably stay away from, but a lot of that is self-

preservation). The fact that a lot (most?) of your do-gooder liberals

describe themselves as aethiests or Brights or whatever does

not support that point at all. The fact that a lot of the bloodiest

wars are started by religious factions who espouse " kindness "

also doesn't argue for it. In fact, if there is a division between

" help the helpless " and " ignore the helpless " I see it on

lines of gender ... women tend to want to help the helpless,

regardless of their politics or religion.

Bringing this back to food, you have the opposite argument:

why do people who are religious bother with a good

diet? I mean, if you are going to die and go to heaven

anyway, why bother eating right to prolong your life?

(I'm not being sarcastic here: I heard this argument

from some very religious people, seriously). But the

fact is, a lot of very religious people still eat healthy,

for good reasons (and find Biblical references to support

that position, but there are as many references on the

opposite side). I'd say the desire to " be healthy " is

built in to people, along with the desire to " not be sick "

and especially, to see your children be healthy. Therefore

there are aethiests who eat healthy (or not) and Baptists

who eat healthy (or not).

Now, in some churches there is an " eat healthy "

movement (low fat high carb, but it's a start) and the

folks who belong to it say you should eat healthy

for spiritual reasons, and will probably say that aethiests

won't eat healthy because they have no reason to, etc.

But much of the " healthy eating " movement started

with the science/liberal/hippie folks. Social programs

and eating programs have the same goal ... keep society

and the family healthy. It's a goal spiritual and not spiritual

people share.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>Not that you said that atheists can't be murderous but just pointing it out

>because atheist war-mongering is frequently overlooked in favor of pointing out

>religious war-mongering.

>

>Chris

True, one shouldn't generalize. It's hard to find examples of wars fought by

athiests though. MOST leaders say they are religious (except the Communists I

can't think of any recently who admit to being athiests, and NONE prior to 1900

-- even Hitler was the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, if I recall

correctly). With few exceptions, religion is used as a justification for war

because it is so easy to get people motivated to fight " evil " . Even the

communists used a religious-like zeal, only the " evil " folks were " capitalists " .

Hitler used religion too, mainly against the Jews.

The Japanese and the Mongols though, fought wars openly for territorial gain

though, as did and the Romans -- I don't think they count as athiests,

but they were a lot more direct about their goals. However, in the old days it

was also believed that the army who won a war had the stronger god(s). So I

guess war and religion are VERY intertwined, though I'd say in the majority of

the cases religion is used by leaders rather than actually being their

motivation.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/7/03 1:36:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> True, one shouldn't generalize. It's hard to find examples of wars fought

> by athiests though. MOST leaders say they are religious (except the Communists

> I can't think of any recently who admit to being athiests, and NONE prior to

> 1900 -- even Hitler was the leader of the Christian Democratic Party, if I

> recall correctly). With few exceptions, religion is used as a justification

> for war because it is so easy to get people motivated to fight " evil " . Even

the

> communists used a religious-like zeal, only the " evil " folks were

> " capitalists " . Hitler used religion too, mainly against the Jews.

Heidi,

This is not quite a fair comparison you are making because atheism as a

philosophy is a modern phenomenon and did not exist in the Middle Ages or prior

to.

So if you isolate the modern period and look at only those attrocities it

would be more fair. Or particularly if you look at the part of the modern

period where atheism was actually popular.

If you look at the 20th century, you find the Soviets-- who were about as bad

as all the religious fanatics put together. Hitler killed about 11 million,

Stalin and co. killed about 30 million.

And the Soviets targets were not just capitalists, but religious folks as

well. And in fact religious people suffered the most oppression and death, not

capitalists. The peasants defended their churches from the government with

pitchforks and whatever they had, but they were largely destroyed, turned into

museums, etc, and many, many people were martyred out of it.

That they had religious zeal is the whole point, and one made

earlier: that atheism is not the absence of religion but is itself a religion.

> The Japanese and the Mongols though, fought wars openly for territorial

> gain though, as did and the Romans -- I don't think they count as

> athiests, but they were a lot more direct about their goals. However, in the

old

> days it was also believed that the army who won a war had the stronger

> god(s). So I guess war and religion are VERY intertwined, though I'd say in

the

> majority of the cases religion is used by leaders rather than actually being

> their motivation.

Exactly true. However, the Soviets, official atheists, engaged in basically

massive genocide out of purely religious motivations.

Chris

[Guest guest]

>Heidi,

>

>This is not quite a fair comparison you are making because atheism as a

>philosophy is a modern phenomenon and did not exist in the Middle Ages or prior

to.

>So if you isolate the modern period and look at only those attrocities it

>would be more fair. Or particularly if you look at the part of the modern

>period where atheism was actually popular.

Well, exactly, that was my point. It's hard to isolate " athiest atrocities "

vs. " religious atrocities " because there are so few atheists (that admit

to it, anyway) and the Soviets, who professed to be athiests, behaved

in an essentially religious manner.

>That they had religious zeal is the whole point, and one made

>earlier: that atheism is not the absence of religion but is itself a religion.

That's what I was trying to say, at least as far as the Soviets. Now when it

comes to a philosophy such as Buddhism I'm not sure ... the Dalai

Lama seems unlikely to start or support a war, but they don't make

any statements for or against the existence of God either. In general

Buddhism seems to lack fanatacism. So you could say " fanatacism "

tends to fuel wars and killing, with or without supernatural beliefs.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/7/03 7:50:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

heidis@... writes:

> That's what I was trying to say, at least as far as the Soviets. Now when

> it

> comes to a philosophy such as Buddhism I'm not sure ... the Dalai

> Lama seems unlikely to start or support a war, but they don't make

> any statements for or against the existence of God either. In general

> Buddhism seems to lack fanatacism. So you could say " fanatacism "

> tends to fuel wars and killing, with or without supernatural beliefs.

I don't know why people say this. I've seen numerous examples of religiously

motivated massacres by Buddhists over the last several years.

Chris