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Consider this: people have used religion to justify and advance their agendas since the earliest days. The Crusades, the Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, Terrorism, Hard Right Conservative Evangelicals, most Cops, even the Nazis had "Gott mit uss" (God with us) stamped on their belt buckles and terrorists shout "Allah ackbar!" (God is great) as they sacrifice their own lives taking as many innocent victims with them as they can.

All of these groups of people engage or engaged in evil to one degree or another and have racked up a body count in the multi-millions while atheism has a pretty much bloodless history of reason and non-violence.

What can we conclude from these facts on the influence of God throughout history?

Sgt_Spanky 8 June 8
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37 comments

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9

we can conclude that humans will use any tool available to harness power and dominance.

8

That the old maxim holds true
It is easy for good people to do good
It is not difficult for evil people to do evil
But to get good people to do evil, that takes religion

7

Almost to a person, the believers I've been in contact with have little to NO knowledge of the history of their religions, or their "holy" books.
Most christians have no idea about the history of their bible. None.
Many of them don't even realize that the main character in their book was jewish.

🤣

6

Religion is just one tool used for control.

Another is a half inch drive with a twelve inch extension and a breaker bar.

6

Religion poisons everything. Their god isn’t much better!!

6

I am an atheist. But it is a person's character that make him do evil. Religion may have influence. We cannot ignore the contributions religion has done to humanity. The Christian missionaries have played an important role in modernising education in India. The teacher who encouraged me the most was a nun. She was aware of my beliefs and told me to make decisions myself. There are theists who create problems and terror. There are atheists as well who do the same. It is not a fight between atheists and theists, but a fight between the kind and greedy.

5

Of course the theists will point to Stalin, Pol Pot, and Mao as atheists who killed millions. They may not have been religious but they were still following a perverted ideology which is really the same thing.

But to what degree were these maniacs using atheism to justify or advance their agendas or was atheism just incidental to their personal and political lust for power as rulers of atheist nations?

They did not however perform atrocities in the name of their atheism, nor have their followers scream "Secularism forever" while blowing themselves up on the promise of a glorious afterlife and the approval of an imaginary friend that they did not believe in.
It is a false equivalancy.

@TheMiddleWay Extreme ideology of any type is the problem.Even Buddhusm which I have always considered to be peaceful has it's militant extremists as can be seewn by the treatment of the Rohingya people in Burma.

@TheMiddleWay, @Sgt_Spanky Stalin did initially persecute the church by putting priests into labour camps and demolishing churches but in the WW2 he enlisted the curch to help motivate the people.
He was an evil bastatrd but he was also a pragmatist

@TheMiddleWay True, except that theist religion more than any other, provides a ready made authority figure who you can use to easily justify your extremism, and who, because he does not exist, will never argue with you, and whose ideaology is rooted in some very old texts which are so mixed up, that they easily provide any interpretation you like.

@TheMiddleWay What is extreme science ??

@TheMiddleWay Yes but even his biggest supporters, do not see him as god, and they do have to accept his views, they can not make it up and then point to where he agrees with them.

@TheMiddleWay Once more you are not reading what is writen. I actually said the opposite of "acepting on blind faith" , I said that they have to accept what Hawkins said or leave it, because Hawkins at least has a possition which is self consitent. Whereas with things like biblical text you can take any possition you like and then find a justification for it, thereby claiming authority for whatever you want.

@TheMiddleWay How can leaving or accepting be blind faith, there can not be alternatives in blind faith, because choosing alternatives involves choice.

That is a perfect example to prove my case, he Bible does say "do not kill" once or twice, and then goes on to recommend every form of slaughter, a hundred times over, including acts of war, human sacrifice, genocide, the murder of children based on racial grounds, killing people for minor breches of the law. And morethan enough for anyone intent on killing for fun to find a justification.

@Fred_Snerd Well, that certainly is science but surely it is the application that is extreme not the science itself

4

I think you mean to say the influence of belief in god or gods. I had a woman tell me all the great things religion has done for human civilization and my rebuttal was it is miraculous that humanity has survived the scourge of religion. The only great contribution of religion, in my opinion, is cathedral architecture.

4

Abrahamic religions like Christianity and Islam have always had the urging necessity of imposing their belief on other people by any means, mainly war but also by force and torture. The Crusades also had secondary purposes other than religion, like dominance, pillage and power. Western powers have colonized, invaded and interfered in Arab or Islamic countries in the past century and even this century, creating terrorism as an only way to strike back for a lesser power. Religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Shinto are personal and they don't do proselytizing. Judaism doesn't do it either because they are the chosen ones and there will be room in heaven for only 12,000 people of each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

4

Atheism/agnosticism is inherently humanistic and appeals to people who choose to think.

4

My conclusion is that your god likes the same things that you do. This is about as bad as someone believing that their god is the right god. Yes, let us create god in our own image.

I'm glad we didn't create him, he'd be invisible,,,,,,,,WAIT A GOL DANG MINUTE!

4

How does anyone justify having an imaginary friend and believing that that same imaginary body controls everything he does on earth? That alone is insanity in all ramifications and that explains why believers will do anything to prove their insanity, as to me that's what they are proving. Insanity is what will drive a Muslim extremist to kill hundreds and shout allahu akbar believing one imaginary god is happy with that singular act...

4

What I conclude is that theism is evil. Atheism is good.

@FrankA I acknowledge that there are good and bad atheists, as well as good and bad theists. But It is also true that most of the horrible things that have happened throughout history can be blamed on theism. I could be wrong, and if I am I would welcome a correction. 🙂

3

God is going to be the death of US.

3

As it is with the saying that Guns do NOT kill people, people with Guns kill other people so it is with religions, except for mythological Abrahamic God, God/s do not kill people, people kill other people in the name of the God/s and religions.
Hence, as we've seen in history ever so many times, God is both the Escape Clause for the Losers and the Celebratory Excuse for the Winners, i.e. IF one side wins outright then it was because God willed it so, the Loser has an escape clause, or so they think, because they can simply believe that God was NOT impressed enough with their efforts and withdrew his support from them.
The Christian God/Jesus has always been the Rallying Cry for warfare, genocide, etc, etc, just Allah is the Rallying Cry for the Muslim Radicals, etc,etc.

3

Religion, one vast Sleeper Cell

twill Level 7 June 8, 2020
3

I wouldn't go so far as to say that atheists have a bloodless path but I would agree that having an imaginary friend that is in agreement with everything you want to do will make it easier to justify any sort of atrocity that the human mind can come up with. An Atheist is quite as capable of inhuman acts as much as a Theist but I think they have to own up for their actions, more so than a believer ever will.

@FrankA opinions are like assholes and you are entitled to yours, have a super sparkly day. 🙂

3

We atheist are definitely not clean when it comes to violence against others. Just look at Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and others like them who killed millions. There are people on this very website who show a lot of hatred against religious people just like the religious show hatred against us atheist.

As I stated below those men didn't use atheism as a rallying cry nor to promote an agenda of atheism. They were fascists whose personal lust for power drove their lunacy. That they ruled over atheist nations was incidental.

You are right about Mao et. al., but I think you are wrong about all but a few on here. When the storm troopers are religious people, it's perfectly just to hate religious people.

2

Racism's foundation is absolutely based on religion. Religion claimed that black people had no soul when they found entire continents of people of colored and no sign of their fabricated god or religion. How could an all knowing god not know of these people? Easy answer - they don't have souls so god ignored them as he did the rest of the animals. This is how todays version of racism started folks and then everybody forgot how it started but kept the mindset and the fake religion.

jrhere Level 5 June 12, 2020

Wrong... Another example of leftist science denial:::. "Racism" is genetic. We all are programmed to NOT trust strangers. That is genetic based self-defense. And a clear indication of our "need" to preserve our tribe. Other wise our tribe, our culture, and then we, are destroyed.

I'm always wrong so no surprise there. My thought is --- What you're not exposed to helps to determine what you will think is strange. If you're not around Mexicans, you might think they're strange when you see them. Conditioning caused by prolonged low to no exposure heightens division and the "stranger" effect. So when you segregate, you build a wall that creates strangeness between the two sides - It symmetrically becomes the people you trust against the strange ones you don't.
If there is actually a gene that makes you distrust a person of another color I'm sure a CRISPR could fix that.

2

Add this one: Pope Nicholas V “Doctrine of Discovery” (1492) that sanctioned to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever” and to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery” and “convert them to his and their use and profit.”

This is the doctrine upon which Columbus and later Europeans justified the genocide of the indigenous people in North, “Latin”, and South America.

The Doctrine of Discovery was later cited in U.S. Supreme Court rulings that stripped land from Natives, even as late as 1954.

This info is beautifully explained by Mark Charles in this 17-minute TED talk, wherein he rightly characterized the U.S. Constitution as a white supremacist document.

2

What better way to get people to do what you want than to say god is on your side.

"God will smite you" is more effective.

@chucklesIII Yes that will work to. If you don't agree with what i say then god will punish you.

2

"What can we conclude from these facts on the influence of God throughout history?"

Clearly NOTHING! One might as well ask the rhetorical question, "What can we conclude from the facts on the influence of garden fairies throughout history?"

If garden fairies influenced the thinking of the majority of the population as well as shape the legislation of its government then, yeah, let's discuss the influence of garden fairies.

@Sgt_Spanky Indeed! Let's trade one imaginary, non-existant entity for another! I'm with you!

@Sgt_Spanky The bottom line is, a non-exsitant being has no influence on anything. Any influence is in the eye of the humans who either created or bought into the fabrication.

@p-nullifidian Non existent things can have an enormous influence on people and society as Jesus, and Santa Claus, and Micky Mouse all prove. The fact that these things aren't real has made no difference on their impact on the world.

@Sgt_Spanky Mickey Mouse is fucking real! I can buy him, I can see him on the internet, I can hear him. Wadda else,,,,,,,,,,,uhh,,,,,,,,,,,,never mind,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I'll calm down........

@PondartIncbendog Don't get all Donald Duck on me now.

@Sgt_Spanky I agree, the concept of God is highly influential. People are willing to kill and die for ideas. My point is that non-existent things cannot, from a purely scientific point of view, influence anything.

I've actually seen one. (humor).

2

It was "“Gott Mit Uns” not "Gott mit uss". 🙂

And it is 'AllahU Akbar' and it means 'Allah is greatER' (than you, yours)! Allah was the name of the male God before 'Islam'. Tribes in the Arab Peninsula had also the female God Allat, and Hubal, Uzza,,,

2

Interesting that the Jewish religion forbids even the mention of God. As a child I wondered why. As I emerged in this mish mash I understood.

2

Religion and all it's accompanying and varied made-up gods, are the ultimate scapegoats !

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