killing for god

[juldea]

Still reading Trinity. It's really appalling the killing and other atrocities done in the name of god.

Even if you can point and say, "That was them, they were mistaken, they totally did religion the wrong way," I have never heard of someone killing another human being "for atheism."[1]

I can't think of a better reason to be an atheist.

[1] Feel free to provide examples if you have them.

Comments

[tpau]

i grew up in a country where atheism was the state religion. yo uahd to loudly say so. if not you went to prison, to labour camps and to death. Stalin killed a huge quantity of peopel because they wer e"poluting hte russian soul with the evils of religion".

[juldea.livejournal.com]

This is for the other people who aren't reading our AIM log. ;)

I don't see those killings as done in the name of atheism but rather in the name of Socialism/Communism/Marxism/what have you.

From AIM:
They were not trying to be atheist. They were trying to make others not religious. See the difference? My point is NOT that people have killed to make others "not religion A." My point is that people have killed because they believe that's what they are supposed to do as a member of that religion. AFAIK, the Soviets did not kill because they believed it was their duty as atheists to do so.

tpau claims that some did believe it was their duty as atheists to kill folks with religion. If so, well then, I am corrected. But the spirit of my original argument stands! ;)

[siderea]

AFAIK, the Soviets did not kill because they believed it was their duty as atheists to do so.

Yeah, I think tpau is quite right. The killing of theists was carried out because their theism was seen as a potentially contageous malignant threat to the new utopian culture that the Communists were attempting to create. The Russian Communists believed (as I understand it) that religion is a threat because it is just an aristocracy by another name. In Communism, princes are the enemy -- including Princes of the Church.

While atheism, per se does not come with a mandate to defend atheism from non-atheists, that's certainly a, er, logically consistent position to arrive at by strictly atheistic utilitarianism.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I'm compelled to continue the argument of, "But they're doing it for communism, not for atheism," but I think I'm just being stubborn. ;)

[tpau]

most religiouns (though not all, i do nto believe christianity falls under this ) do not come witha mandate to kill. but people do take it upon themselves...

as i said to juldea, religion is big and shiny and like nuclear power (not the exact thingi said to her). it can bring electricity to millions. orit can kill millions. like any sufficiently big deal thing, it is BAD in the hands of morons. unfortunatly by it's nature religion attracts more morons then nuclear engineering...

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Woah, woah, woah.

Where does the mandate to kill come from in Christianity? The Crusades, the Inquisition, all that crap was done in the name of God, but God didn't wander down from the Heavens and say "Go kill those people." the Church (the institution, not the religion) took it upon itself.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

The Devil's Advocate in me says that if the religious texts can be interpreted to support those kind of viewpoints... *shrug*

But that's not my real argument. :)

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

The Devil's Advocate in me says that if the religious texts can be interpreted to support those kind of viewpoints...

If you have a Devil's Advocate to begin with, you're at least halfway to understanding that any complex religious text can be interpreted to support any arbitrary viewpoint.

[tpau]

"thou shall not suffer a witch to live" ? plus, i could be wrong :)

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

There's more to that quote than just what people use. Apparently, the orignal Herbrew word that was transalted as "witch" (in the King James Version) was "chasaph" whihc is more accurately translated as "poisoner."

More on this here: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=68504

It's also from Exodus. Ian't that part of the Torah?

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

That is present any time zealotry happens in an ideal. For me at least...The ACLU representing NAMBLA on it's right to publish and freely distribute material on how homosexuals can seduce and rape young boys is almost as bad as any other atrocity. Freedom of speech does have it's limits just as does Freedom of religion and any other freedom out there.

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are limits. The Supreme Court has held that shounting "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre when there isn't one does not fall under the protection of free speech.

The ACLU representing NAMBLA isn't the atrocity. NAMBLA is the atrocity. Protest them, write letters, do whatever, but the ACLU is doing what Voltaire said: "I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight for your right to say it." (paraphrased.)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

*nod* This reminds me of something a professor told me in my University Capstone course (basically, major thesis)... He was telling a story about a friend of his who was a defense attorney and therefore had to defend some really horrible guys, but he did it to the best of his ability. Did he choose to be a defense attorney because he wanted the chance to free guilty people? No... he viewed his job as "making sure the judicial system did its job as it's supposed to." Ensuring the police, courts, etc, are all conducted in the proper lawful manner.

I've never thought of defense attorneys in the same way, since.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of curious where your argument came from... I said nothing about freedoms of speech/religion/etc. I was speaking about the tendancy for really horrible things to happen in the name of god and the (perceived) lack of horrible things done in the name of atheism. I didn't say that horrible things don't happen in the name of other things, too!

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

Horrible things happen because people take something to an extreme and then pursue it with zealotry.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

The point of my post is that I've never heard of atheism taken to such an extreme or zeal that people are killed because of it.

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

In my opinion, it is because people who believe in atheism have little or no convictions.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I disagree. But I think we know that we disagree. Heh.

[waya3k.livejournal.com]

Yep...we have to respectfully agree to disagree.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

In fact - pardon me preaching a little (pun) - it takes a LOT of conviction to be an atheist in a world where the majority of people are religious, and some even view you as "evil" for the worldview you hold. People don't choose to be pariahs lightly, you know. You gotta be pretty damn sure of yourself to decide to live your life as a (choosable) minority.

[hunterkirk.livejournal.com]

""That was them, they were mistaken, they totally did religion the wrong way," I have never heard of someone killing another human being "for atheism."[1]"

Just tell that to the Jews of the USSR... their mass grave may not agree with that assessment.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I have already replied to this statement in other comments to this same post.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Plenty of religious people kill; plenty do not. Plenty of non-religious people kill; plenty do not. When people kill en masse, they always have some excuse, but the excuse is not the underlying reason, whether the excuse is religion, communism, or lebensraum.

Well, actually, lebensraum kinda was.

Groups of people are organisms engaged in natural selection. It is often a good strategy, when competing for scarce resources, to murder your competition. So it goes.

I would speak against literalist religion because it's dumb, and against atheism because it doesn't have the cool motivating and unifying properties of religion. I recommend a strict course of made-up comedy religion that you take seriously, but not too seriously.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I assume you would, of course, strongly recommend Enkism for that last bit? ;)

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

FOOL, DO YOU THINK A SINGLE RELIGION IS ENOUGH TO SAVE THE LIKES OF YOU? No, your only hope lies is in worshipping the mutually contradictory trinity of Enki, Eris, and Erdös. Add one deity and pass this on to five of your friends and good luck will come to you. "Bob" only passed it on to four and was STARKLY REMOVED. Don't be a "Bob".