And also think about what happened in the Cultural revolution. The Chinese just barged into Tibet when it did not belong to them, destroyed the monasteries, killed dozens of Tibetans (mainly monks/nuns), and forced every survivor to live in crappy, badly decorated apartments.

I cannot say the reasons behind it as I am not familiar with the history, but it's likely that there were either political motivations or possibly meant to be a demonstration of power.

Vikings often attacked monasteries, not because they were Christian so much as because they often had the goods they were looking for, such as coin and gold.

If you think about it, religious centers are a great place to attack. They are pivotal to people as people, and attacking such places can act as a tool of demoralization against the opposition.

Were you peeking in my windows? That's exactly my story

The problem is religions tend prescribe a certain "moral" code. Atheists have to gain their moralities through society and reason alone. So while religious creeds of morality can be at fault (like the racism prescribed by the Bible that influenced Hitler (but that most groups carefully disregard now)), there are no "atheist creeds" of morality.

You can certainly blame a certain interpretation of the Bible for Hitler's rage against Jewish people. You can say that Hitler was a Christian denomination and he was, drawing from Christian tradition. Stalin and co? They were atheists. But their atheism didn't contribute to their blood-thirsty deeds.

It's more like the nature of tug-of-war.

Religion adopts morals of a society. They hold onto those morals while society advances. Then you have a conflict of the issue of morality. Though I would say the codification of morality is more prevalent in the monotheisms as they actually put it down in word rather than orally, which is may be more susceptible to societal changes.

Except that religions also define moralities all by themselves, without adopting them from other cultures. That's half of what theology is all about. It's not just that religious morality ends up outdated, it's that it often has no rational basis at all.

The basis for religious morality is almost always falsified in metaphysical terms, such as "Don't eat meat because you upset the balance of nature", or "It is generally better to eat food that is grown without a substantial synthetic contribution, because that's more natural", or "God deems certain animals unclean to eat", etc, etc, etc.

"Except that religions also define moralities all by themselves, without adopting them from other cultures." Can you provide for this statement?

Catholic belief in the Pope's status as divine appointee is a good example. Alongside transubstantiation. According to Catholicism these are reality, and it is "right" to defend them as real and as sacred, even to the point where a man was assaulted for walking out of a church with a Eucharist a few years back in the US. These "moralities" are defined by the theological structure of the religion itself - the constructed "reality" (in the most flagrant inverted commas we can find) - the imagined "structure" of an unknown metaphysical world.

Aggression and territoriality are the root causes of war - primitive human behavior. Blaming atheism makes no more sense than saying that banning all religions would end war.
It wasn't clear - are you saying that the Bible is at fault for the Holocaust? Because the last time I looked at it, I couldn't help but notice that a huge amount of the characters in the Bible are Jews.

IMO, everyone tends to keep the religion tradition from their family, so that's why most people here in Spain are Catholic, and that's why Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. are mostly in some located points of Earth. That's why I believe that nobody is able to know about the existence of God, gods, or whatever.. OK, faith, you have faith that they exist because you were told to. If you are, for example, Protestant Christian, you were born in Sweden and your parents and all the people around you profess this same religion, how do you know that if you, YOU, the same you that you are now, but born for instance in Morocco, how do you know that you wouldn't be Islamist instead of Christian? It's the same you, but you have had another education, so you believe in different things.. But that's just my opinion

I didn't say the Bible was "at fault" entirely for the Holocaust, but Hitler's highly racist interpretation of the Bible is a form of Christianity, as legitimate as any other, really, in theological terms. Most religions don't exactly require consistency in interpretation. Even if the denomination is totally horrible in secular terms. Hitler's form of Christianity is definitely a contributing factor, reliant on metaphysical support rather than reason. Which is how religion sustains irrationalities.

I do not see how that is a "morality" necessarily created by the religion itself, but more as a monarchical entity wanting to hold power with the tool that grants said power. Much like how a dictator would prohibit public (or even attempt at private) criticism of his reign, as it could be perceived as a threat or ignition of a threat against their regime.

When I wrote that I wasn't defending the Bible, per se - to me, it's a big crazy hodgepodge of contradictory rules and weird soap opera. In the two Hitler quotes you cite, he doesn't quote from the Bible. He mentions Jesus expelling the moneychangers, but it doesn't make any sense because yes, the moneychangers were Jews, but Jesus was also a Jew, so was everybody else in the temple. Hitler chooses to ignore that. He just wants to cloak himself in the authority or sanctity of the Bible. He already knows there are a lot of anti-Semites out there.
My point, such as it is, is - that humans have behaviors that they are probably going to do, regardless - war, scapegoating, pecking orders, etc. They look around for reasons and excuses to justify their actions, especially if they need to convince others to follow. So I wouldn't say that Christian morality is at fault because in the New Testament, the morality seems to be to love others. In the Old Testament, God favors the Israelites over everybody else because they alone worship him. Is that what you mean by the racism in the Bible?

You trivialise the belief here, as if practicing Catholics don't believe in the Pope's role, or in transubstantiation. Sure, you can see the power-wielders hand in all this. But the truth is, Ratty probably believes it all too. It's likely mass delusion much more than deliberate deception, people tend to rationalise their actions, and religion allows for a whole other-worldly realm of excuse-making. I mean, look at your claims of having no choice in your faith - the frankly offensive comparison you draw with actual traits, as if your worldview was fixed. Goodness knows, it takes powerful faith to argue you're trapped like that when you're so clearly possessed of a fine mind. Trapped in "comfort", at least. Though, goodness knows, still trapped.

Isn't the point that religion is - due to it's inherently irrational and yet widely appealing nature - a perfect tool for such power-wielding and self-deception? Religion is a perfect vehicle for irrational threats/perceptions. You have to work a lot harder to sell irrationality to people who value rationality and evidence more highly than do those who are comforted by faith in things unknown. The whole point here is that irrationality, as a core value, is exceptionally dangerous... ...and irrational. It allows people to believe in things that there is no evidence for, the superiority of the Aryan race, or the primacy of "nature", or the idea that lions are supposed to eat zebras. Religion is the only efficient carriage for irrational values outside of mental illness (not that I mean to suggest religion is an illness, it is not - it's a political scheme that invokes the spectres of magic and mystery). It's nice that you have a sophisticated theology, you clearly do. But it seems that most of the sophistication has come from trying very, very hard to make something irrational seem sort of maybe rational if you squint really hard when the lighting is bad.


Well, the character of God in the Old Testament hadn't really been worked out yet, so he was inconsistent across the texts, which are really a messy patchwork of stories from various sources. In the Book of Tobit, God is portrayed as being largely unconcerned about Tobit's (comic) tribalism, and yet in many other stories he is the source of the tribalism. The New Testament doesn't go any length at all to contradicting the culture of racism and slavery so present during the period that Jesus' may have existed.

The reality is that denominations are free to make varying interpretations of the right way to treat races other than themselves. It's quite clear that Hitler sees Christ as a divine victim of Jewish what-it-is-he's-got-in-his-sick-head. When it comes to religion... ...he can just revise it all to suit his ends. Religion, unlike reality, all boils down to perception. The fact that the moneylenders were Jewish, that Jesus was Jewish, is simple to understand if one accepts there is a God who transcends these boundaries. You just make some specious shit up and it's true for you. And your followers. Again, religion is just private prejudice about the world, either invented or received.

I'm not following how you made the leap from belief in God to belief in the 'superiority of the Aryan race...' Using that as an example, did Nazism even have any significant religious component? And if that's not what you meant, Germany was in a bad way after WWI - if you've starved long enough and someone comes along and says 'I will help you', you may say 'let's follow him' - religiosity would have nothing to do with it. It would have more to do with our human brain chemistry. As does religiosity itself.



Yes, denominations are free to interpret the bible, but so is anyone free to (mis)interpret any written work. If Christians actually followed the teachings of 'Jesus', we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. Religion like so many things, has an ideal and on the other hand, an often ugly reality. If we said, let's get rid of all religion because it's misused and irrational and causes untold troubles, it would be replaced with something else. Because that's what people do. Some group always tries and often succeeds to control as many people as they can. 'Jesus' teaches a message of love, and says when you love, others can't control you with fear and hate. But soon , the whole thing has been twisted around into just another power trip. Do you believe that if religion was gone, people would behave rationally, wars would end, people would see the value of cooperation,etc?

There's no such thing as "misinterpreting" a religion. If you insist that there is, what is it?

As to the religious elements of Nazism, I suggest you read the quotes above, which show an explicitly Christian and creationist framework, and then dig into the rest of the work from Germany's Nazi period.

Where did I say anything about misinterpreting religion? That Christians don't follow the teachings of Christ? My point was that religion is a symptom not a cause of the world's problems.
I have read about Nazism - so far I hadn't seen any glaring links drawn between Christianity and the belief in Aryan superiority. But
I was looking up Hitler's religious beliefs on Google and saw there's some war going on between Christians and atheists, who's responsible for Hitler. You are - no, you are. So I'm not going to bother joining that debate.

I didn't have the time to read the whole thread but I'll go through it over the weekend.

My family was never a fanatical- religious one and it's a known fact that most Romanians are officially orthodox but fewer and fewer practice it nowadays.

So for me it was never going to church on Sunday unless there was a special occasion like a wedding, funeral, baptism etc.

Religion in school isn't optional but mandatory unless you have another religion (other than the official one).

Anyway, there was a time in my life 10-14 years old when I had the potential to actually embrace orthodoxism as I voluntarily wanted to do so but as I learned more about the big business that the church is and the fact that attending the service wasn't helping me in any way I became less and less interested. Spiritually, I prefer music, literature or art in general, for me it is enough and I'm now mature enough to say that agnosticism best fits my views but I do not reject the idea of a deity. It is just a larger vision of that matter. For me, God could the the Earth, the air, the Sun, the atoms that form the matter.

I wouldn't even want to get married by a priest or in a church, I know it's too early to say that for sure but it's better than being a hypocrite when I am not really religious nor agree entirely with the Bible, learnings of Christianity etc.

Besides, I wouldn't have to pay the priest for marrying me in a ceremony with rituals that I personally don't like at all.

I do not think Atheism directly caused violence in Russia or China, but both Stalin and Mao forced Atheism onto the people, and message was clearly to stick to it "or else".

As for Hitler, I would say that his hatred of Jewish people had more to do with his own ancestry than with any form of religion he may have had. Having studied Hitler and WWII quite thoroughly, the evidence I have seen indicates that Nazism had more to do with the economic state of Germany at the time, and the ability of Hitler to manipulate a suffering German people. Hitler's power lay in his promises to save the German people from this state, and they believed he could. Of course, when you are a dictator, you still need the people under your power if you want to retain that power, so alienating the large Christian population of Germany would have been a stupid move on Hitler's part, and for all that he was, he was not stupid. Neither Christians or Atheists are "responsible" for Hitler. That would be yet another example of trying to use the worst possible example as an example for the whole. If evil exists, then he embodied it, and comparing him to normal people of any belief system is wrong.

Yes, and for that Stalin and Mao can be directly attacked. That isn't an edict of "atheism", though. Atheism doesn't have edicts.

I say again, I've never said Christians are responsible for Hitler, only that irrationality in the form of religious faith makes it infinitely easier to distribute unreasonable rules. You just have to invoke metaphysics. There's a lot to suggest Hitler was a genuine believer though, he takes a very consistent Christian line in all his writing, and constantly favoured science distorted to fit an explicitly creationist view of the world. There is effectively nothing to suggest his religion was merely for the purposes of propaganda.

He also favored science distorted to fit racist, classist beliefs and called Eugenics. There was nothing metaphysical about that, and yet many, many people got on board during the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Hitler rationalised his racism in metaphysical terms, as per the "God created the races/species after their kind" rhetoric he employed. I think we're getting off track? What was your point with that comment, I can't work it out. Apologies.

My comment is in response to your previous comment -


I must have misunderstood - I thought when you said that "irrationality in the form of religious faith makes it infinitely easier to distribute unreasonable rules. You just have to invoke metaphysics", you meant - irrationality in the form of religious faith makes it infinitely easier to distribute unreasonable rules. You just have to invoke metaphysics.
So I provided an example of someone invoking science, not metaphysics, to distribute unreasonable rules which millions of people accepted without the benefit of a metaphysical component. I admit I don't know how you're defining metaphysics.
And I thought when you said, "...constantly favoured science distorted to fit an explicitly creationist view of the world.", you meant that he constantly favoured science distorted to fit an explicitly creationist view of the world.
So the same example shows that he mainly and more tragically favored science distorted to fit a racist view of the world (eugenics).
I thought your argument was that religion is irrational and by the act of participating in it (believing), people are more likely to do and believe other irrational things. That religious texts can be interpreted any way someone chooses and thus dangerous.
By that logic, I could say the same thing about Science - that it's dangerous because irrational and/or crazy people can take scientific data and distort it, and millions of people end up prematurely and horrifically dead.
But I wouldn't say that because it's not logical.
Sorry I misunderstood.

It's worth noting that Teddy Roosevelt used the same popular Christianized version of Social Darwinism, Manifest Destiny, and "White Man's Burden" to rationalize our concentration camps in the Philippines during that war at the turn of the century. We'd adopted it before when we were rationalizing the United State's previous efforts at genocide with the Native Americans. It wasn't new or something outside of the mainstream when Hitler adopted it, it was the scope and how it was revealed to the world by the media. It was the direct and overt effort to the intent of genocide without hanging Christian concepts of conversion on things in the end, or maybe it was that the Christian world finally rebelled against the Christian concepts being associated with it. Religious ideals and morality aren't rigid since they hinge upon interpretation much of the time. Depending on the time period and inclination you can produce soup kitchens with religious sentiment or burn innocent people alive, using the same source texts and even sects.

Stalin's Purges, on the other hand, were quite explicitly about managing power, putting down dissidents, and solidifying government. Atheism? It wasn't like it was pushed as a "new religion," the whole idea was the cripple religion entirely so that there was no more power base to speak out against Stalin. Compared to Hitler, Stalin really was forging new ground here, at least in terms of the 20th century. Stalin's Purges, and Mao's "New Man" movements were really something of a response to the sort of Western Christian ideals that supported both Hitler and some many others in Europe and America. While it was definitely just as brutal in actuality, the suppression of religion in the Communist revolution was intended to suppress the sort of anti-populist "Dominionist" mechanisms that were seen, I think, as Western tools of colonialism and false authority mechanics that had repressed their representative cultures. Even if that idea wasn't explicitly set in tone with China and the USSR, it certainly was the pitch for other populist communist movements elsewhere in the world, like Africa and the Americas.

I guess what I'm suggesting, other than the history lesson, is that whether it's in its explicit appeal or in implicit response, religion was part of either movement. It's just too important reality of political life in general for it not to have been. Do I agree generally with the statement that some of these historical figures, in a world without religion at all, would have probably been complete bastards without religion just because that's the sort of people they were? Sure. But I think that it's important to acknowledge that religion provided some of them with powerful tools in rationalization, or a powerful political narrative to act against. Stalin attended an Orthodox seminary growing up, does that mean he was unaffected by religion?

Speaking of complex atheist-religious-political issues, more people should read up on Theodor Herzl, the Jewish atheist who was one of the driving forces for the creation of modern Israel.

First off, I'm defining metaphysics traditionally, so: "abstract theory with no basis in physical reality". Using this sense, very few things are metaphysical. Love is chemical and social, ergo physical. Education is manifested in a complex, physical web. Religion has a physical presence too, in the people who practice it. But the actual stories of religions, like the Yahweh, or Gaia, or the invisible pink unicorn, these are metaphysical. They are literally alleged to have no (or only passing) physical existence. Basically, the metaphysical is the art of claiming to know about anything entirely speculative, unknowable, or currently unknown. So when Hitler's regime banned Darwin's "Origin of Species", they did so because the observable data (the science) didn't match up with their metaphysical beliefs about the origins of humanity (the religion) and so they opted only for falsified and speculative theories that weren't supported by the data, like special creation (the religion).

The Nazi's didn't distort science. They avoided doing it.

Secondly: Of course it's not logical. Science is evidence-based, it requires data. Hitler's science wasn't scientific, in fact it was mainly religious. Religion just requires assertion about a metaphysical quality that (usually) affects/has relevance to the physical world. Eg, "The universe is complex, and we see it in a coherent form, therefore there must be a consciousness behind it.", or, "This science can't be right because God didn't make us from apes."