Organized Religion
 

All these conflicts and hatred between people all throughout history seem to be based on religion and peoples religious beliefs. ( Or is this my imagination )? Religious fanatics seem to be the root of all evil, or am I going to hell for saying so?

Well, I don't think you are going to hell for saying that. However, I'd suggest that evil originates in many places where religion is notably absent: the former Soviet Union, China, or amongst many non-religious people's in America and elsewhere. (Just to pick a few.)

Broad statements like that are rarely true, or at the very least, rarely tell the whole truth. Hitler, for example, was non-religious.

Either way, I think this thread should maybe go under philosophy?

prolly gonna end up here

Communism killed 100 million people. Though it's not a conventional religion, it's followers were just as fanatical as a Muslim extremist or a Jerry Jones fanatic

I have noticed, that mostly when people argue that the religion is the root of all evil or vice versa, the non-religiousness is the seed of all bad, they are trying forcefully to prove their point.

If I understand you correctly NCB, I'd prolly agree with you (even though we probably disagree highly in what is really communism) - fanaticism is what really tends to kill.

And Guy44, I'm not sure but you seem to contradict yourself by first making a broad statement and then saying that they are generally flawed. And we can of course debate whether Hitler was religious or not - at least in Mein Kampf he talks about God and how he is doing his work through his politics. While "the Hitler card" is a bit worn out already, I'd like you to prove me (or at least produce arguments) why you perceive him as non-religious? Maybe you are referring to the writings of Rosenberg? Or the cultlike tendencies of national socialism?

And while we are at it, I'd also like to know more about how these non-religious people in America are spreading evil? Who are they, exactly?

Not yet. But I am going to move it to Tilted Philosophy, and keep a close eye on it.

Religion is just a smaller part of the social framework in which people operate, which is the cause of wars. It has nothing to do with the religion itself necessarily, but what people use that religion for. I'd say if there were ever a singular "cause" to be chosen as the reaon for war (which is a pretty silly idea in itself), it would be greed or possibly ego.

It's not the religion that does them in, it's the fanatacism. Fanatacism over anything is dangerous, even peanut butter and jelly. These people just happen to use religion, and, as mentioned, some people use political parties or racial groups.

Bingo....the religion itself has little to do with it. The person's greed or ego (in the connotative sense) manipulates the "religion" (in quotes because once this happens it is no longer truly the religion) for his/her own purposes.

The point about fanaticism is also true.

I try to be wary of all true believers.

And I don't think that all religious people become fanatics, just that fanatics tend to gravitate to religion because it offers answers to things that people seem to think they need.

While people can be fanatical about peanut butter and jelly, such does not satisfy the systemic cravings of fanatics.

Religions are an example of the class of self-perpetuating ideas. Yes, they are powerful. Powerful things sometimes kill many people.

Religions do useful things for their hosts, but you must remember ideas only do good things for people who host them if that suits their own (historical) survival ends. And ideas are no smarter than genes, they don't predict the future.

I view the most useful thing that religion does is effectively reduce mankinds 'discount factor' on the future. The discount factor is the amount less that things are worth in the future than the present. (ie, would you pay 50 cents today for 1$ tommorrow? How about 99 cents today for 1 dollar in 50 years?) Even ignoring inflation and uncertainty, people discount the future at an average of around 6%/year.

But most/many religions give people a belief structure that values the far future as much as today. From Christianties heaven to reincarnation to many others, your actions today have infinite consequences formatted in a way that they should matter to you.

The Bible even has rules against charging interest (a form of future-discount)!

In effect, the Religions are (trying?) to make people act with more care about the arbitrary future.

That is a good thing that I think Religions do.

What they also do is encourage people to expand themselves and destroy/damage people who aren't a member/follower.

Blather over. =)

That is highly ambiguous.
He useds "gods will" in numerous speeches and also in his book "mein kampf":

"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord."

He sometimes ended his speeches with "amen", he believed that he was send by God and that he was the defender of "christian traditions". He made Christian school prayer mandatory for schoolchildren.

It is of course not 100% clear if he really believed of if he just used god as a propaganda instrument. You can't tell for sure whether he was an atheist or a believer.

http://www.creationtheory.org/Morality/Hitler.shtml

Communist states are atheistic and are responsible for such things as Stalin's gulags and what China is doing now in Tibet.

Religion is an excuse which can be replaced by another excuse.

What is common about Religions and other belief systems that acts as an excuse?

I mean, to me Stalinist-Leninist Communism looks a hell of alot like a religion...

I think I'm missing something, when did communism kill all these people?

I'd say that have/have not has had more to do with human strife than religion ever has. Sure, religion is often used as an excuse, but as a reason? I just don't see it.

i don't think you're going to hell. if there were some all-seeing all-knowing all-forgiving god above, i don't think he'd damn you for saying something like that, especially concidering how true it is. on an evolutionary level, people have it inscribed into thier genes to want to survive: but with the ability to think rationally and concider one's own existence, one also gaines the curse of needing to rationalize thier being alive. people have always beleived in gods because it makes them feel that they have a place in the world, feel more meaningful; which is a good thing, but on the other hand, they get too agressive about it, because when the only thing supporting thier beleifs that they have a reason to live is threatened, they become scared and agressive, and in an attempt to make the oppressor seem incorrect, they turn the oppressor into an enemy. it's human nature to have enemies, as it is with any animal; to a dog an enemy is a cat strolling through his owners back yard, and it's the same thign with people, only on a more social level; and the fact that we no longer feed our animalistic lusts like killing only fuels our angst to betray one another even more. people are complicated messes and everyone is going crazy under this structued society. it makes me feel much better about life to put my faith and love in myself and the knowledge that people are immature children fighting against the wind, than it does to put all my emotions into a god figure.

Yakk, discounted future - that's a really interesting concept - and one I've not come across or thought about in those terms before - thanks! And yes, communism (especially of the Lenin/Stalinesque/Maoist type) is about as close as it gets to religion.

As for religion and fanaticism being the root of all evil? - It does seem a bit simplistic to blame everything on organised belief - the answer then, has to be no.

The reason so many people have mentioned that communism, or whate ver it was the ussr was doing, looks like a religions is b/c it appropriates the exact same psychological motivations. Most (if not all) organized religions promise some kind of future betterment through obedience to their principles. Obviously this is entirely general but I think it applies. What communism, or any materialist utopia, does is say, 'Look god tried to make people happy but he has clearly fucked up, so fuck him. He gave us all the wrong tools, but dont worry, we've got it figured out. What we have to do now is have you give us your freedom and in exchange we'll give you bread, and we'll let you sin, and you'll be happy.' (and this you could read in its perfect for in Dostoevsky' The Grand Inquisitor')

Now, it's another question when we try and consider how fanaticism enters the picture and I think unfortunately it's quite a paradoxical questions, chikens and eggs. What we can say though, is that in the course of human history religion and religious belief have become more subserviant to the demands of reason. What was once a pantheon of gods is reduced to God, why, if 1 can do what many did then, well, fucking obviously. Ocham's Razor, or at leat the well known edge of it.

What I'm trying to say is that I think your question is only hinting at another, more fundamental, question. If religion and utopia appropriate and make use of the same energies, and these energies are subject to the demands of reaon, where does the problem arrise. There are, IMO, two things common in persons, an ability to believe, and an ability to reaons. Presently I am of the opinion that the belief is not causing the problems, one does not believe in greed or killing or any of that, one reasons it and follows that course of action through a subjective perception of advantage. Of course, we simply are unable to reaons our advantage, which is why it must be left as a matter of faith. Only when we try that, and this is what organized religion is supposed to be, we always somehow let reason in the back door and it [religion] transforms from a spiritual institution to a social one, the pope becomes caesar (papocaesarism) or caesar the pope (caeasaropapaism).

I think that makes for a conclusion and since I have to leave work now I'll look at this latter and correct it if not.

I think you're onto something here. A fanatical person is likely to find a belief system that they can both defend and use to shield themselves. As religions, based on faith, are not inherently provable or disprovable, they offer the perfect shield and sword for the fanatic.



On to the subject of Hitler, he and many high-ranking Nazi officials were occultists, and the Nazi party itself was born out of the Thule Geselschaft* (I can't believe I spelled that right on the first try.) Dietrich Eckart was a prominent occultist and Thule magician who drew Hitler into the Thule society and influenced him much more than historians give him credit for. The order believed that Thule was an island like the legendary Atlantis, but that it was not completely wiped out, and the Aryan master race was waiting to retake control of the world. Hitler believed that as a brother of the Thule Society, that he was destined to be the leader of the new world order uinder the Aryan Master Race. As you can see, although he began life as a Catholic, he was far from being a believer in traditional organized religion when he rose to power. He was a fanatical cultist.

Hitler was also a firm believer in both the Hollow Earth and Shambhala, sending search parties to the poles of the earth to find entrances to the underworld, and to Tibet. After the war, there were reports of Tibetan monks found dead, clothed in Nazi uniforms.


* - http://www.intelinet.org/swastika/swasti15.htm offers an explanation for the Nazi party's use of the Swastika as its logo.

Well, you didn't - it is probably Thule Gesellschaft?

I'd like to see some sources for that though, books (not to talk about websites) portraying Hitler as a big occultist (at least those I have seen) are mainly pseudo-academic rubbish or otherwise dubious. Even though it is true that Hitler was into occultism - at least when it comes to creating the Aryan mythos, the fictional past in the vein of 18th century German romanticism.

For example about the Neuschwabland on Antarctis, I have never seen a real academic biography about Hitler mention it. IMO such things seem nothing more but conspiracy theories.

True Hitler had connections to the Thule Gesellschaft (TG help his DAP (later known as NSDAP) rise), but he was never a member. Also the Gesellschaft istselft is subject of many legends and speculations (manly about supposed occult or even satanic rituals and other BS). The Logo of the Gesellschaft: LOGO

The Gesellschaft was forbidden 1937.

Damnit. I checked the page I was reading, not a real spelling authority.

god is the old folks imaginary friend?

Religions, fanatics... it all comes down to belief. Most people truly believe some things to be right, and others to be wrong. These people have a choice; they can either decide not to act on their beliefs and be turned into a slave subject to the will of others, or they can exert their opinion. This will almost certainly lead to violence, as neither is likely to change their beliefs and just ignoring them is out of the question.

Of course some of the most obvious examples of the type of beliefs that cause conflict would be moral, which are usually based in religion.

This is why I am really annoyed by people who automatically assume war is bad and should never take palace. This indicates to me that they believe in nothing strongly enough for violence, which means that they are a slave.

Ouch - that's a bit harsh isn't it? I'd rather allow my beliefs to be subjugated than be asked to kill or make orphans of other people's children. Does that make me a slave? Or does being given a rifle and told to march for hours and to follow orders that you neither understand, nor agree with make you a freeer person? What if your commanding officer told you to torch the village where suspected members of the opposition lived? Would you follow your commands? Do as you were told? How free are you then? What belief do you believe in strongly enough to injure someone while they look at you? What do you believe in strongly enough for you to execute someone's son? Whatever it is, it had better be good...

If I can walk up to you and tell you to lick my boots or die, then if you are not willing to respond with violence those really are your only options. Obviously you should not fight for a cause you do not believe in or follow orders you believe are immoral, but that is not the point. I believe the security of my family and friends is worth injuring someone while they look at me, and even if they do not. If me or mine are threatened by someone I will kick them in the balls, stab them in the back, gouge their eyes out, whatever it takes to remove the threat. I would execute someone if they were a threat, and their children too if they were of the same mind.

Depressingly there is another way of getting along in the world. People can follow idiotic pacifist ideals while hiding behind those brave enough to defend them and kind enough not to chain them, and they loudly protest, insult, and spit on them for doing so. Putting up with that and still protecting them with their lives is worthy of true respect.

One of my favorite quotes:
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. That person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."- John Stuart Mill

Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi all moved social mountains peacefully. "Idiotic pacifist ideals" indeed. Please, inform us here who they hid behind and spit upon.

Obviously, there is no one single way to achives one's goals.

Why would you do that? Rational human beings simply don't behave like that. Believing that they do is a sign of ignorance. Tell me the last time this happened to you?

This is your family that you are protecting here, not your beliefs. That's perfectly normal ape-like behaviour. It would of course be a lot easier if you had a chat with your percieved threat, you might discover that there was a misunderstanding and both go your own ways without any bloodshed.

. Yes those boys are brave, but they are doing a job. A dangerous and underpaid job. They need to believe the patriotic bollocks or they wouldn't be out there dying so we can continue to safely eat hamburgers.

. It's a lot harder to enslave a race of people than it is to operate a free-market economy. This is why capitalism works so well, it's a de-centralised, very efficient way to get people co-operating towards a common set of goals and values. Slavery requires a huge investment in housing, healthcare and security, it's simply not cost effective.

. I'm sorry, but it just isn't the stone-age anymore. Pacifist ideals are the ONLY way to live in a world where machine guns, anthrax, nuclear and biological warfare exist. Why? Let me explain it in terms you can understand.

It is very easy to kill a lot of people these days, either conventially or unconventially. Adopting a non pacifist policy encourages your opponent to do the same. Conflict ensues. Many people die.

Alternately, adopting a pacifist policy on either side shows strength, as well as de-escalating the situation and stepping towards a mutually beneficial solution. Nobody dies.

We just managed to scrape through the cold war without destroying the world in the process. The USSR collapsed under its own millitary weight, and now America's world debt and failing economy means that it too is heading the same way. Might is not right, it's bloody expensive, and ultimately unsustainable. But this isn't the politics forum, so I'll leave it there, feel free to open a topic in Politics if you want to continue this line of thought.

Finally, I suppose the real difference is how you percieve 'other people' to be like. Are they agressive, war-like, immoral and ultimately unpleasant? Or do they behave with tolerance, love and mutual respect for one another?

If you believe people are essentially unpleasant and willing to cause harm to others for no apparent reason, then you must hold the aggressive point of view. If you believe however, that people have a shred of decency, while continuing to operate in their own best interests, then you must be a pacifist.

Or, you can believe that everyone who happens to be from a different country/social group/tribe etc to your own is unpleasant, in which case you are simply ignorant.

And as for this:

Yes, war is an ugly thing. The needless suffering it brings does nobody any good except those in the arms or the coffin industries.

Patriotism, like racism and nationalism is unfortunately one of the evils of our race that simply does not seem to want to go away. Plato (or was it Socrates?) felt that one owed one's life to the city one chose to live in because it offered protection, schooling and many other benefits. This may have some validity - however, in the world we live in today, the forces of the free-market are strong enough to engulf the individual in necessary beaurocracy and red tape. The city-states of Socrates and Plato were much smaller affairs, where a man really could make a difference. Patriotism in a small-scale city state is very much like looking after your family and friends - something I can understand. Patriotism in the form of the irrational belief that the country one was born in just happens to be the best/greatest in one respect or another is however something entirely different. I accept looking after one's family, but one's country? Now that does sound a little but like religious indoctrination to me.

Violence is proof that all other avenues have failed. Someone with a shred of intellect should be able to find a solution in 90% of cases. In the 10% where a solution cannot be found, if you do resort to violence, you'd better make a good job of it, because if you don't they're going to come after you in the morning with their mates - how is that going to protect your family?

The trouble with war against entire nations is that often you simply can't kill everyone. Which means that someone will end up turning up with a bomb on your front doorstep. In the meantime, you need to employ someone to stand on your doorstep looking out for bombs. Which leaves your windows vulnerable to attack, which means you need to get someone to shield those aswell. Before long, your position becomes unsustainable.

While this may have been true in Mr Mill's time, it really is a very dated idea today. Those exertions have been made, by brave and driven men before us, the world has been built. But we have discovered that peace is far more productive than war. The world has progressed, we have moved on, we have harnessed more powerfull forces than Mr Mill could have ever imagined. This makes his viewpoint is nothing more than a relic today, a quaint window into the dusty past.

fanatacism may it be nationalism, patriotism, fundamentalism, all leads to suffering by someone.

They all believe that they have some undeniable truth. They are the choosen ones. This obviously causes problems, since they all can't have the utlimate truth.

This is why I think nationalism is far more dangerous than religiosity. For one, it's random i.e. you do not choose where you were born. Secondly, it is not tempered with any of the normal wisdom that you might find in a religion. Thirdy, most of the wars and unpleasantness that are blamed on religion were actually nationalist conflicts. The participants were really not interested in the religious bias of their counterparts, just that they were forgeigners.

In many ways though, nationalism and patriotism are indistinguishable from organised religion. They are all authoritarian, participants are expected to believe what they are told to believe, truths are simplified in order to be understood by the masses and subservience is required. For the cynical amongst us, they would also appear to be equally non-sensical and full of irrationality and contradiction.

I would however, say that religion provides us with deeper benefits, and tells us more about ourselves than the shallow pools of patriotism and nationalism. At least religions teach peace and put us in touch with a more thorough understanding of the world around us. This is something that no amount of flag-waving will ever provide.

There are never two options. I almost feel bad for saying it, but read some Foucault. What he gets to in a whole lot of detail is this...power is not a binary relationship. It's not that someone has it, and uses it on people who don't. It's a lot more fluid, and reciprocal.

subjugated people everywhere have found non-violent means of resistance, what theorist Homi Bhaba calls "sly civility" where the resistance is not overt, but still upsets the colonial/opressive power.

Religion is at it's best when it gives us the tools for critiquing the power structures around us, and our participation in them. and i think there's a lot to work with from that standpoint.

Foucault actually has some trouble describing resistance to power, but I don't think it's a serious difficulty. But that's not really what I wanted to talk about.

I have mixed feelings about nationalism, myself. Certainly there are few things more odious than a rabid nationalism, mainly for the reasons zen_tom pointed out. But I think it's right and good to feel some sort of proper pride in your nation, just like it's right and good to feel some sort of proper pride in your family, and I think this analogy is a very good one -- I'm reminded here of the Winston Churchill quote "Saying 'my country right or wrong' is like saying 'my mother drunk or sober'." That is to say, we can recognize flaws in our country, but whether it's right or wrong, it's still our country. We our her this because she reared us.

I think there's something to what Phage is saying, though I wouldn't put it the same way. There is something wrong with someone who does not believe anything strongly enough to be passionate about it, who does not have any beliefs she considers worth dying for. It seems to me to be something of a shadowy existence, since there are beliefs worth living for, and if a belief is worth living for, it is worth dying for. But, and here's the ugly side of belief, it is a small step from a belief being worth dying for to a belief being worth killing for, and this is a bad step to make.

But I by no means think that this entails war is wrong. There may be no beliefs worth killing for, but that does not mean there are not people worth killing for. War waged in defense of one's neighbors, in defense of one's country, is right and good. I'm not going to get into just war theory here, but it seems to me to be clear that there are cases in which war is justified.

This response highlights how naive you are. People do not always behave according to what you belive is rational, and thinking that they do is the height of ignorance. I am not behaving how you think a rational person would, so your point is well and truly dead.

As for people not behaving like that, how about this real-world example: "Wear this yellow star at all times, or be killed." I don't think that was long enough ago for even you to have forgotten.
"perfectly normal ape-like behaviour" - This seems like a cheap shot in the hopes of casting the behavior in a negative light, without addressing the morality of the action.
Of course reasonable discussion may prevent violent conflict, but you are arguing with a straw man. I never said not to try to solve conflicts reasonably.
The only point I could get from this crass outburst is that they need to believe in what they are doing in order to do their job, an observation that does not address the belief at all.
It might be harder, but slaves sure have a good profit margin. The whole reason why people have such a problem with slavery is because slavers don't make investments in things like housing and healthcare, and if they did it would be in letting the slaves build it themselves. Even security is not a problem if the slaves are not willing to resort to violence.
Just because you think they are really nice people if you get to know them, does not mean they will act like that toward you. Again you are making a straw man; I am not advocating violence before a reasoned attempt to resolve conflict, merely noting the necessity if everything else fails.

"There may be no beliefs worth killing for, but that does not mean there are not people worth killing for."
Ehh? The only reason you would be willing to defend someone is because you believe it is a worthy cause. If you are willing to fight to defend your neighbors it is because of belief. That statement is a contradiction.

So your reason for not standing up for what you believe in is because you think the world is so big compared to you that you will not make a difference? Do you think a single defensive lineman in football has any chance of holding back the other team? If everyone stands up for what they believe they can make a difference, but if everyone acts as cowardly as you they will never be worth anything.
In theory the citizens have a moral investment in their country. Your dislike of religion aside, if you do not believe in your country perhaps you should leave and stop hypocritically reaping rewards from a system you profess not to support.

Here it seems you are arguing that war is difficult. No argument with that point.

All you have discovered is that you can profit while hiding behind the bodies of people who care about your wellbeing. If you would look at the middle east you would see a remarkable lack of progression.

Phage, we can agree to disagree - just a couple of things to clear this up.

If my tone was strong, it's because I resent my opinions being labelled as "idiotic pacifist ideals" or that my holding them makes me a slave. I think I've presented the case for pacifism (as have others) in such a way as to make you realise that it is far from idiotic. Naive maybe, misguided perhaps - but please avoid insulting the intelligence of those you disagree with. If I did the same in my posts it was because I posted with some emotion, and if that offended you, then I apologise.

My reference to "perfectly normal ape-like behaviour" wasn't meant to be negative, I was simply pointing to the fact that we, as animals, have a certain set of innate, natural responses to percieved threats. Simple as that.

That's exactly what I did do a number of years ago. I've not lived in my country of birth for a number of years now. I think that deals with the accusation of hypocracy.

The problems in the middle east stem from people adopting a non-pacifist view. If either side shifted position, the conflict would not be so entrenched as it is now. The Middle East (i.e. Palestine/Israel) is the perfect example of what happens when two groups of people adopt the line you are advocating.

And please, there is a difference between cowardly behaviour and eschewing violence. For one, it takes a lot more courage to stand up and say no more, and to appeal to people's better natures than it does to take up arms to do others violence.

It is also far more sensible in the long run.

Two responses. You may be killing because of a belief, but you are not killing for a belief. That is, the belief features in the chain of reasoning, but it is not the sole or even the most important feature in that chain; your neighbor is. That is to say, there's a difference between killing you because you refuse to be baptized and killing you because you're about to kill someone else.

Second, your response assumes there's a chain of reasoning at all; that is, in the situation where you are about to kill my friend, I think something along the lines of "I should kill to defend my friends; Donald is my friend; therefore I should kill you to defend Donald". But more likely, the 'reasoning' is likely to be much simpler: "Donald is my friend, therefore you must die". We don't kill in these situation because for the sake of the categorical imperative, we do so for our friends. Which might just be a different way of putting the first point.

Perhaps this discussion would help if you could provide an example of where you believe you should use violence to defend your beliefs. I'm fairly certain that would help me out, at least.

I'm still not sure I've got my point across. My morality is based on asking what would happen if everyone acted the way I do. I understand that not everyone does, but if everyone killed at the first sign of threat, the world would be a miserable place indeed.

However, if everyone acted (perhaps naievely I admit) in a way that gives others the benefit of the doubt, we really would be a step closer to a kind of Eutopia. If I want others to trust me, and not kill me when I am percieved as a threat, I must try to act that way myself.

We maybe arguing a moot point here, since you conceed that violence should be the final resort. Perhaps our differences lie in our readyness to take up arms.

In the example you gave about being asked to wear a yellow star; If the people responsible for upholding that regime had refused to fight, it would never have been a problem in the first place.

I suppose that makes it a circular argument. If everyone was a pacifist, there would be no aggression or war in the first place. If everyone was aggressive there would be an eternal, ever intensifying conflict. What to do given that there are a mixture of people? Would you prefer a majority of pacifists, or a majority of aggressors?

Or, and here is a third option I'm willing to accept - a balance between the ability to do harm, and the preference not to?

Either way, we are drifting off topic. I don't accept that conflict based on belief is ever justified. Defence yes, I do accept that. Protection of what one loves yes, absolutely - given no other alternatives. But how can someone threaten a *belief* such that violence is justified?