'Religion belongs to Dark Ages': Atheist says attacks reinforce his belief all faiths are nonsense

[rug]

New York September 11 2001. A day of infamy where Al-Qaeda's attack on the World Trade Centre killed 2700 people.

Jan 10, 2015 08:36
By ALEX MOONEY

HOLY men calling out the names of 10 journalists before systematically killing them one by one in a Paris office – in the name of a loving god.

Holy men taking seven hours to end the fledgling lives of 132 school children and setting their teachers alight in front of them in Peshawar, Pakistan – in the name of a loving god.

These two barbarous acts in the last month disgust all decent people and must surely hasten an end to the absurdity of religion.

Sentient beings who promote ancient fears, rituals and superstition must learn that their ludicrous beliefs are ultimately dangerous. Holy wars belong to the Dark Ages – as does all religion.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/religion-belongs-dark-ages-atheist-4952352

This may save time.

[cbayer]

1. But what about all the non-religiously driven heinous acts?

Mexico: Six women murdered each day as femicide in Mexico nears a pandemic
http://america.aljazeera.com/multimedia/2015/1/mexico-s-pandemicfemicides.html

Boston bombers

Oklahoma City bombings

Newton and Sandy Hook

The movie theater murders in Colorado

This article is so ridiculously simplistic and off base as to not even merit reading.

[LiberalAndProud]

4. Would you argue that removing more than one of those things that divide us,

ideas that provide some sort of twisted justification for murder, would be a bad thing because it wouldn't solve all our problems?

I don't argue that removing religious motives will resolve all things, but I do think it might remove some of the artifices that we as a species have established to divide "us" from "the other."

[cbayer]

7. Religion does many things, both good and bad.

While I agree that the divisions it creates are harmful, it also provides reasons to reach out to "the other" and many people do that.

I think it's important to support the positive while condemning the negative.

FWIW, the biggest divide in this group is between non-beleif and belief, including those that support religion. The solution is not for everyone to become a believer or non-believer, but to learn to acknowledge our differences while embracing what we have in common.

[LiberalAndProud]

16. Condemning the negative, I guess, is much easier for me.

Whereas I do acknowledge that religious institutions have the infrastructure and generous hearts to do much that is good, I think those efforts are undermined because they are so often meant to convert those who are targeted to be helped, even if conversion is not the primary intent. The question, for me, becomes is there more harm than good in it. While the good cannot be dismissed, I tend to think the excess baggage it brings is ultimately more harmful.

[cbayer]

17. Most unfortunately, condemning the negative is easier for lots of people.

It's more work to show support for the good things.

But the danger here is in dismissing or marginalizing those people/groups who are in the best position to push back against the negative.

Some do try to convert while doing it, others honestly don't. Making the distinctions is critically important. It is the most in need who get the most benefit from the good things that religious groups do. So many poor, disabled, sick and abandoned people get what they need to survive from religiously based groups. Can we really put up a measuring stick when it comes to those people?

I don't know if there is more harm than good, but I do think we can tilt the scales in favor of good. We can also tilt the scales in favor of bad by refusing to support the good.

[LiberalAndProud]

19. I don't think the lines between the good and the harmful are as clear as all that.

Historically, Western capitalism has been exported on the back of religious missions, for example. People are fed while simultaneously being indoctrinated in economic ideas blessed, sanctioned, and bolstered by religious ideologies. These ideas are so intertwined as to be sometimes indistinguishable one from the other. We become mired in traditional thought to the degree that we spend no time or energy or effort to find more equitable and just ways to organize our society, because ours is God-blessed.

[cbayer]

20. Agree that they are not always that clear, but at times they are glaringly sharp.

The areas of grey, as your describe, are the toughest. Missions have sordid histories all over the world, including in the US, and it is indeed difficult to tease out whether the good outweighs the bad.

But then there are programs and missions and groups that are driven by their personal ideology and do not proselytize at all. There are catholics for choice, mormons for glbt marriage equality, people in the darkest corners of the world working with the most despised.

I fully support these groups whether they be religious or secular, and particularly those that force us to look at our own society. A society that is "God blessed" only for some, is not god blessed at all, imo.

[bvf]

23. People predisposed to do good

are just as capable of it without the promise/threat of a happy eternity/everlasting hellfire.

Well, they should be, anyway. I've said it before: I just wish people would use their fucking brains.

[LiberalAndProud]

25. Charitable people in the church aren't necessarily working in fear of hellfire

or hope of everlasting life, but genuinely want to make the world a better place. I'm related to some of them. Please be gentle with them. They're intelligent people, on the average.

[bvf]

28. I'm related to a lot of them, too.

And I dearly love them all, with one exception I won't go into.

No doubt they strive to make the world a better place, but I have to point out that, in most cases, their heads had been crammed with fire-and-brimstone/spend-eternity-looking-at-god nonsense since around the time they acquired language--including the following:

Worship the imaginary being.

Don't worship any other imaginary beings.

Do what your husband says.

Honor your parents, regardless of how shitty they are.

Gay is bad.

Get together once a week to chat with people whose heads have been similarly stuffed.

Etc.


And yes, I wish they would use their fucking heads.

[rug]

6. Well, it's convenient to have it all in one place.

Less clutter.

[cbayer]

9. And with all the garbage that is being spewed around this event, this one

would be hard to out do.

[randys1]

2. Religion is a symptom of tribalism (thanks Ari Rabin Havt for this) and

while we will always have violent people and problems, without religion reinforcing the wrongheadedness of tribalism, it would be far less

[rug]

5. Oh, there's no shortage of fuels for tribalism.

[randys1]

8. You seem to have dismissed the very worst one rather quickly

[rug]

10. You seem not to have recognized the very worst one.

[randys1]

12. Worst one what? Religion?

or worst symptom of tribalism?

[rug]

13. The worst fuel for tribalism.

I haven't determined which is the worst but racism, nationalism and capitalism are right up there.

[okasha]

22. Capitalism frequently drives the other two.

[Fumesucker]

24. Capitalism is the symptom, the disease a bit more basic

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

[LiberalAndProud]

27. Nationalism and capitalism

Hamilton and the Treasury
and God. Why pick just one?



As for racism, Alexander Hamilton was an abolitionist who placed a higher value on property rights.

[cbayer]

11. Do you think there is any tribalism in regards to atheism.

I feel pretty certain that tribalism would continue even in the absence of religion.

[Live and Learn]

26. +1 nt

[bvf]

29. Could you possibly expound on that?

Because it comes across as glib and dismissive absent an explanation.

[hrmjustin]

3. I hate it when we are all portrayed as violent when we are clearly not.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Maybe it would be a good idea to edit the exhortations to violence out of your source documentation

so people are less confused.

[Trillo]

15. Great harm can be done without violence.

Physical violence is merely the most visible form of harm. I often wonder if a quick death from extreme violence is preferable to a lifetime of misery caused by remembrance of great past cruelty.

[edhopper]

18. I disagree

it belongs back in the iron age.


I joke.

[Jim__]

21. Your beliefs belong to the Dark Ages.

If only everyone would believe what I believe, we could put an end to tribalism.