Will we survive religion?

[Mirdath]

Sounds Utopian, my friend. The closest mankind ever came to implementing these ideals ended in the murder of more people than at all previous eras combined. And it was in the name of Atheism. Communism was the result and it was these Atheistic regimes that killed 200,000,000 people.

Really now? I’ve already posted on that subject, but here it is again – many more people have been murdered in the name of religion than in the name of godlessness.

The ideals Valke is talking about have little to do with atheism – in many ways militant atheists are just as worrisome from his point of view as militant missionaries. In this utopia atheism is just another point of view, not considered more or less valid than theism, deism, or agnosticism. Mostly the prevailing attitude would be “I think I’m right, so I do it my way; you’ve got a different idea, fine, go ahead and do it your way, let’s just keep out of each other’s hair.” What’s so earth-shattering about tolerance and acceptance that other people are capable of independent thought?

Religous practitioners have their flaws, but man, unchecked by belief in God is a monster. Further not all religions are created equal. Christianity has it’s periodic black eyes, but it has done more for the advancement of mankind than any other philosophy in human history. Judaism is not too shabby either, both having the same moral foundation and linear view of the advance of history. Other religions, on the other hand, should be judged by the same standard of benefit to mankind. The obvious one(s) having mostly a negative effect on all aspects of life that they touch. Keeping people stuck 1,000 years in the past and offereing almost nothing to civilizations that compares to Judeo-Christian thought and practice.

I find fanatics more monstrous than the psychopathic.

And sure, not all religions confer the same kind or amount of social and personal benefits; there’s a pretty good reason nobody worships Quetzalcoatl anymore. That Christianity has done more for the advancement of humanity than any other religion is arguable; I’d agree with you fully had you said ‘Western civilization in modern times’, but no matter.

And as for the religions which negatively affect their followers and yet are somehow still followed… why shouldn’t they, if they’re apparently that worth it, and nobody is harmed? Nobody says we have to all progress technologically at the same rate.

If you are happy for hospitals and modern medicine, orphanages, science, governmentsthat are flawed but based on intrinsic human dignity, education and western civilization in general you can thank Christianity for that, or rather the God of Christianity.

Mel

For most of those you can spare some of your thanks for pagans, deists, agnostics, and atheists as well – particularly in medicine, science, politics, and education.

 

[fix]

I am becoming more and more convinced that civilization cannot survive religion unless we are all willing to acknowledge that no religion has a monoply on absolute truth; that our scriptures are flawed, human documents; and that it is the height of folly to assume that the road to faith was perfected 3,500, 2,000 or 1400 years ago.

Is that view absolute?

Any religous system that imposes ethical behavior, promotes civilization and discourages violence, must be respected, acknowledged and given equal value to one’s own religious system. Anything in one’s own religous system that does not fit this criteria needs to be changed. Otherwise, we’re doomed.

Is that absolute?

People are willing to die for beliefs that have as much evidence to support them as we have to support the belief that Zeus exists. In fact, people would rather kill or die their own set of stories than to acknowledge that their neighbors stories are just as “true.”

Is that absolute?

This has led to disasterous results in the past. In a nuclear age, it can only lead to the annihilation of civilization, unless things change.
If that doesn’t change, we’re doomed.

Is that absolute?

 

[nby]

Actually, the question that I keep asking myself is whether civilization will survive secularism in its present corrupted form. I think that the answer is yes civilization will survive because in the end the truth will come out, and yes there can only be one truth. All this relativism rubbish is no more than a tool that is being used to confuse people. And I speak from experience because I was deceived for many years by this so-called “relativism”.

You just simply can’t apply one rule, relativism in this case, to everything because it just doesn’t work like that. There exist many other rules that we can also use in order to gain a more complete understanding of life. It’s just unfortunate that relativism has become the main and sometimes only “enlightenment” for so many people.

Anyway, people are waking up and soon you will watch your “relativism” crash to the ground in a ball of fire.

 

[Peter_DiMitri]

Really now? I’ve already posted on that subject, but here it is again – many more people have been murdered in the name of religion than in the name of godlessness.

This is utterly false. The body counts aren’t even comparable.

If you combine the various Christian persecutions for the past 2,000 years, you get a figure of somewhere between 3.5 to 5 million killed.

In the 20th century alone, Atheistic states killed TENS of MILLIONS of people.

More murders were inspired by Karl Marx than were ever inspired by Jesus Christ – this is historical fact.

In either case, however, Valke has once again bought into the Liberal group think that tries to blame all of the world’s problems on religion – despite the historical fact that Atheistic states have done far more damage.

 

[Peter_DiMitri]

ok. But if what really matters is how we ourselves live this life, Iand I agree it does), then we need to live it in a way where we don’t feel the need to kill each other over what we believe happens to us after we die. We’ve had several thousand years to do so, and so far we’ve failed.

“WE” haven’t failed. Some people have failed, and some people haven’t. We pay a lot more attention to the ones that fail, because it’s human nature to focus on the negative.

Look, you’re doing it right now… agonizing over what problems have stemmed from religion, while conveniently ignoring the beneficial effects it has had. Why? Because you are a card-carrying member of the Left, and this is something that the Left believes with all it’s heart and soul…

Which is why Leftist states have historically restricted religious freedom and enforced those restrictions with murder.

We never got a guarantee that the world would be perfect. There are always going to be sinners and saints in this world. We just try to live our lives as best as we can, and hope and pray.

Breathe the free air friend… you’re buying into liberal candy… but it’s an irrational position that cannot be justified by even a remotely even-handed glance at history.

 

[Kaninchen]

When looking at ‘theistic killers’ and ‘atheistic killers’, I’m reminded of Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

 

[Mirdath]

This is utterly false. The body counts aren’t even comparable.

If you combine the various Christian persecutions for the past 2,000 years, you get a figure of somewhere between 3.5 to 5 million killed.

In the 20th century alone, Atheistic states killed TENS of MILLIONS of people.

More murders were inspired by Karl Marx than were ever inspired by Jesus Christ – this is historical fact.

Who’s stopping at Christian persecutions and pogroms? There are many other religions in the world responsible for horrifying numbers of deaths.

Also, I think your counting is off. Remember, I include Hitler as someone who used religion – to his own ends, sure, but the holocaust had a definite religious “inspiration”. That’s 10 million right there. The Inquisitions, the eradication of the Cathars and Waldensians, the slaughter of the Incas and Aztecs, the campaigns of Judas the Hammer against the Seleucids, the advance of the Moors into Spain and their subsequent elimination, Constantine’s wars, the Huguenot persecutions – and that’s not even getting outside the Big Western Three. I think we’re past 5 million.

 

[Jaypeeto3]

I certainly agree with valke2 that we shouldn’t kill each other over our religious beliefs. The Crusades were not merely about our religious beliefs at all, they were a defensive military campaign to liberate Christians who had come under Muslim rule by being militarily invaded by Muslims who were invading those lands specifically for the purpose of conquering them by force for Islam.

I also don’t believe in forcing Jewish people to convert to Christianity or vice-versa. Yes, some christians have brutalized the jews. in the early days of Christianity, from 33 C.E. to 100 C.E., it was the other way around, and Saul (who later became Paul) was one of the ringleaders of the persecutors of the christians.

But Jesus Christ is God, and he (not we) has absolute rights to be recognized. The Spirit of Truth testifies to individual human consciences about Jesus if people will only listen to that Spirit. At other times, Christ have manifested himself visibly to people in order to bring them to faith in him. At still other times, the Virgin Mary has appeared in the flesh to bring people to faith in her son, as she did appear to the Jewish atheist Alphonse Ratisbonne in the 19th century.

There is nothing wrong with absolute truth.
But I do agree that violence and coercion have no place
in the spreading of that truth.

God bless,
Jaypeeto3 (aka Jaypeeto4)

 

[Kaninchen]

Also, I think your counting is off. Remember

It tends to depend on just who is doing the ‘counting’. Just which particular death through famine, for example, is a Communist crime as opposed to being the result of bad weather?

 

[Darrel]

I would say that all this is operating under the assumption that everyone claims to know what ultimate or absolute truth is, and that their neighbors got it wrong.

Ignorance is the problem here, not absolute truth. People in the US have very different “absolutes” yet freedom of religion prevails and we don’t kill each other. In places like Iran that are full of ignorance and the corrupt system in place people kill out of third world ignorance and hate. The system is broken.

As for destroying outselves even if there is a radical shift in how we view each other’s and our own religion, what you are really saying, based on your closing sentence, is that people will always gravitate toward the kind of faith or beliefs and kill for them. I can only hope that is not the case.

Original sin is the problem. Why do you think God judges mans heart and not mans “religion story”?

If you were to wipe the religious slate clean, so that no one ever heard a word of Torah, Koran, or Bible, what kind of religous dogma do you think would take its place? I think a lot of what we are forced to adopt today because of scriptures would not make the final cut.

Without religion in the world we would plunge into absolute darkness. In fact I would dare say that without Christianity we would be living in a some sick empire right now with attrocities beyond imagination happening. Imagine if the United States were Islamic or Nazi right now verses a free nation (based on Christian principals).

-D

 

[Peter_DiMitri]

Who’s stopping at Christian persecutions and pogroms? There are many other religions in the world responsible for horrifying numbers of deaths.

Also, I think your counting is off. Remember, I include Hitler as someone who used religion – to his own ends, sure, but the holocaust had a definite religious “inspiration”. That’s 10 million right there. The Inquisitions, the eradication of the Cathars and Waldensians, the slaughter of the Incas and Aztecs, the campaigns of Judas the Hammer against the Seleucids, the advance of the Moors into Spain and their subsequent elimination, Constantine’s wars, the Huguenot persecutions – and that’s not even getting outside the Big Western Three. I think we’re past 5 million.

And yet you still get the staggering historical fact that you can combine all of those numbers and still fall massively short of the sheer number of homicides conducted by Atheistic states.

Hitler is obviously an interesting issue. Clearly, no one wants him! Still, while it is clear that Himmler was avid occultist there is disputed evidence as to Hiter’s own emotional investment in that. However, again, his suicide looked somewhat ritualistic.

But even if you want to through Hitler in with the “religious”, the numbers are still drastically below what Atheist managed to accomplish in only one century.

In other words, the notion that religion is the sole cause of the world’s problems – a position cherished by the political Left – is completely, utterly historically** false**.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

And I think that people do tend to ignore the benefits that religion has brought to humanity. Because we happen to exist (most of us) in a time where (for us) peace and plenty abound, or are perceived of as possible to have, because we (mostly) do not have to face brutal working conditions, illiteracy, devastating diseases, etc. we think that religion (that quaint ‘leftover’ from the bad old days) is at best a crutch and at worst an absolute nightmare which prevents us from achieving the good that humanity could do ‘without it.’ Well, we have seen in the 20th century what humanity does ‘without the shackles of religion’. . .and it isn’t pretty, whether we are talking about Soviet Russia, communist China, or the hedonistic excesses and the holocaust of abortion that exists even in the land of the free. . .

We tend to forget that because people have been religious throughout history (whatever those religions were and are), humanity in fact has advanced to where it is today.

We like to pick and choose definitions of “religion” and we like to assume that everybody everywhere was ‘just like’ somebody of today, with all today’s benefits, with all today’s ‘insights’, which is of course absurd. Thus, we condemn people for the Crusades because in today’s world fighting for religion seems to be something that we would not do, because we are so ‘tolerant’.

But in 1200 AD the world was not ‘tolerant’, and if in fact the Crusaders had not gone forth to fight for their right to practice their religion (that ‘right to practice’ being something that we in the U.S.A. actually have in our constitution), the Muslims would have overthrown the civilizations in Europe at the time. What exploration may have occurred then would have radically differed from what did occur–and of course, there ‘might’ have been some things ‘better’ but many things ‘worse’. No Enlightenment, no Reformation, no Renaissance, and possibly no industrial age. No universal women’s rights until or unless the predominate Muslim beliefs themselves changed. Think of the literature that would have been lost alone had the Muslims overthrown Europe and later the world.

Either this world is one of indifferentism and relativism–in which case, ‘no religion’ would not only be as ‘good’ as ‘any’ religion, but also would be perceived (as apparently some of you perceive it) as being ‘better’ because it appears unbiased (though in fact it is not). . .

or this world is one in which there are, have been, and always will be, absolutes, truth being one of those absolutes, and religion something where absolute truth can be known and taught; and thus one religion is ‘right’ and the others, to varying degrees, ‘less’ right, though still worthy and still producing genuinely good people in its followers.

And thus, it becomes one’s own personal goal to discern through right reason and faith the one true religion and to follow its precepts. Since we are ‘only’ human we will all individually fail sometimes. . .but it is better to try and to fail, and then to keep on trying, than it is to ‘give it up’ and think that there is no absolute truth, no ‘one’ religion, and that people should just stop even allowing religion to exist.

 

[Melchior]

Really now? I’ve already posted on that subject, but here it is again – many more people have been murdered in the name of religion than in the name of godlessness.

Demonstrably false. Though if you are going to make such a statement you need to understand no one does anything in the name of “religion”. Everyone, however, acts according to their specific belief system. How a Zen Buddhist acts toward others and how a Jihadi Muslim acts cannot be related just because the both have a religion. Religion is not a belief system it is a general word to describe the concept of belief systems.

The ideals Valke is talking about have little to do with atheism – in many ways militant atheists are just as worrisome from his point of view as militant missionaries. In this utopia atheism is just another point of view, not considered more or less valid than theism, deism, or agnosticism. Mostly the prevailing attitude would be “I think I’m right, so I do it my way; you’ve got a different idea, fine, go ahead and do it your way, let’s just keep out of each other’s hair.” What’s so earth-shattering about tolerance and acceptance that other people are capable of independent thought?

I was only pointing out the logical outworking of this when people acheive power. Utopianism that is above religion is fundamentally flawed because it has to be implemented by flawed men in power. And I was justs howing what happend the last time that was tried.

I find fanatics more monstrous than the psychopathic.

One can be both. One can be a fanatic without being religious.
Of course such fanaticism always becomes religion. A perfect example are the terrorists environmentalist groups and animal right fanatics (I am only talking about the extremists) who blow up buildings and labs in the name of theire fanatacism. Which comes from a secularist worlsview initially.

And sure, not all religions confer the same kind or amount of social and personal benefits; there’s a pretty good reason nobody worships Quetzalcoatl anymore. That Christianity has done more for the advancement of humanity than any other religion is arguable; I’d agree with you fully had you said ‘Western civilization in modern times’, but no matter.

It’s hardly arguable if you enhoy modern medicine and science and a high quality of living. The path that led to where we are is clear.

And as for the religions which negatively affect their followers and yet are somehow still followed… why shouldn’t they, if they’re apparently that worth it, and nobody is harmed? Nobody says we have to all progress technologically at the same rate.

No argument.

For most of those you can spare some of your thanks for pagans, deists, agnostics, and atheists as well – particularly in medicine, science, politics, and education.

We would have never gotten here on their worldviews. They are the beneficiaries of a Judeo-Christian worldview.

 

[BobCatholic]

I am becoming more and more convinced that civilization cannot survive religion

I wonder if Atheism also is required to accept your terms. After all, atheism is a religion and has killed 150 million people in the 20th century.

 

[Genesis315]

I am becoming more and more convinced that civilization cannot survive religion unless we are all willing to acknowledge that no religion has a monoply on absolute truth; that our scriptures are flawed, human documents; and that it is the height of folly to assume that the road to faith was perfected 3,500, 2,000 or 1400 years ago.

Actually, its this line of thinking that has destroyed society and will continue to do so. It became en vogue in the 19th century and produced the 20th–the bloodiest and most destructive and hellish century human civilization has ever experienced.

 

[Valke2]

When looking at ‘theistic killers’ and ‘atheistic killers’, I’m reminded of Orwell’s Animal Farm:

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

good point.

 

[Valke2]

I wonder if Atheism also is required to accept your terms. After all, atheism is a religion and has killed 150 million people in the 20th century.

sure. I’ll include any belief system that engages in violence against those who do not follow the belief system.

Both Stalin and Hitler, while they may have been atheists, essentially replaced God with the State. Neither left room for any belief system which questioned the State’s authority. Since this would apply to any religion that placed ulitimate authrotiy in God, instead of the State, such beliefs could not be tolerated.

 

[st_lucy]

And yet you still get the staggering historical fact that you can combine all of those numbers and still fall massively short of the sheer number of homicides conducted by Atheistic states.

Hitler is obviously an interesting issue. Clearly, no one wants him! Still, while it is clear that Himmler was avid occultist there is disputed evidence as to Hiter’s own emotional investment in that. However, again, his suicide looked somewhat ritualistic.

But even if you want to through Hitler in with the “religious”, the numbers are still drastically below what Atheist managed to accomplish in only one century.

In other words, the notion that religion is the sole cause of the world’s problems – a position cherished by the political Left – is completely, utterly historically** false**.

I am also wondering if anyone has also counted the 4.6 million deaths caused by the secular culture of abortion that has only been going on for 30+ years.

I am sorry if it has already been brought up, I might have missed it somewhere.

 

[Franciscan]

And the guy who’s going to burn your house down would also agree that Truth is an absolute and cannot be relative. The men who flew planes into our buildings were embracing their absolute truth. The Crusaders who cut down women and children were embracing absolute truth. There’s so much absolute truth in the Sudan right now that over 400,000 have died for it. Where’s the absolute truth in Bosnia? In Auschwitz? In Gaza? Maybe we need less absolute truth and more lies that we can live with.

Maybe the absolute truth is that to survive we have to love each other and acknowledge the value that each of us have. If that is the absolute truth, it can be found in several religions. There can be more than one story that is told to convey a truth.

Jesus knew that many people would not accept the truth. But we don’t abandon the truth for people’s hard hearts, we change their hard hearts with the truth. If they still don’t get it we leave them alone.“Shake the dust from our sandals”.

“Do not think that I have come to bring about peace upon the earth. I have come not to bring peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. and one’s enemies will be those of his household”(Mt10:34-36).

 

[Valke2]

I am also wondering if anyone has also counted the 4.6 million deaths caused by the secular culture of abortion that has only been going on for 30+ years.

I am sorry if it has already been brought up, I might have missed it somewhere.

35% of abortions in the US are had by Christian women. abortion is not a secular event.