All Comments (16)

The moment that you achieve absolute certainty that you are right and the others are wrong, it becomes possible to consider various rationalizations for their destruction.

Throughout history, religion has been the primary provider of that certainty and a strong enabler of the resulting rationalizations.

Communism and Fascism are political religions. Whether there are gods involved or not, the same kind of mental occupation takes place. For those theists who like to compare communism to atheism ... get your head out.

In response to the claim that atheists and secularists go to war over their beliefs, I would point out that I can't think of a single documentable case in which someone has gone to war to force others to accept atheism.

Pretty dramatic proof here:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/zaid_shakir/2006/11/islam_recognizes_truth_and_wis.html

Article by a conciliatory Muslim scholar results in Christians and Muslims hurling mud at each other.

Restating my earlier post: Religions cannot be reconciled. Any commonalities are superficial, and common ground is found only where faith is thrown out.

Sam Harris explains what we really need to find common ground.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/sam_harris/2006/11/faith_and_an_undivided_world.html

Jonathan, I don't think anyone criticizing religion for being a cause of violence and war are saying (or thinking) that it is the ONLY cause.

Of course there are wars caused by atheist motivations and ideologies, but I would point out that the wars you referred to where mostly motivated by ideologies that have at least two important points in common with religion: fundamentalism and intolerance.

I never saw anyone saying there would be no wars without religion. That would be wishful thinking. One of my favorite songs, does a good job at listing the other things that would need to be eliminated: "Imagine" by John Lennon.

However religion is historically one of the major reasons, not only for wars, but for oppression and persecution. And as someone once said:
"Without religion good people do good things and bad people do bad things. But for good people to do bad things, that takes religion!"

Amen to that.

Seriously - to say that "religion doesn't cause wars" is utter nonsense. And that's not even getting into the non-war suffering it causes even now.

That many wars have been fought primarily for secular reasons does not mean no wars have been fought primarly for religion.

Those who claim leaders "twist" religion to suit their own purposes might want to ask themselves: Why do leaders do this? Because it works.

Back on topic, though, Mr. Waldman's article reflects precisely the type of ultra-liberal attitude that is endangering all of us: There are no "right" answers, so everyone's belief is equally valid.

But nobody who truly subscribes to the basic, core tenets of their faith can honestly say that. A Muslim or Jew cannot agree with a Christian that Jesus was the son of God. A Christian cannot believe otherwise.

Extolling the fact that they can find common ground is tantamount to saying a nun and a serial killer can both agree that they need air to live. It's superficial and ultimately meaningless. It ignores the elephant in the room...which we can't afford to do anymore, because the elephant can blow up buildings now.

The fact that they even try to find common ground is because of SECULAR needs. As Adams says above, it is only by discarding (some of) the most xenophobic aspects of their religion that they can manage to live in peace with others.

Secular needs, NOT religion, have forced people of different faiths to discard parts of their faith in order to live harmoniously. The "progress" that Mr. Waldman mentions is not religion progressing; it is the progress of non-religious thought defeating religious dogma.

What's disturbing - and highlighted by Mr. Waldmans reference to a "war on secularism" - is that literally millions of Americans appear willing to utterly destroy this harmony if it means their faith can gain supremacy. In truth, according to the polls, faith itself has not progressed at all.

Atheists don't go to war for their atheism. I don't see any reason to suppose that Stalin, Pol Pot or Mao killed because they were atheists. They were monsters, like so many other 'leaders' the world has been troubled by. But atheism itself provides no motive for conflict, unlike religions that despise and condemn the beliefs (or lack of belief) of others. As for Hitler, he always claimed to be a Christian (and has never been excommunicated as a Catholic, unlike the Columbian physicians who recently performed a legal abortion on a 12-year old girl raped by her step father). For Mussolini, fascism itself was a religion.

"btw the greatest wars of the 1900's were atheistic in nature. The great atheists Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Jung Il, were the imperialists of the 1900's that were responsible for the darkness of war. War is not caused by religion...it is caused by humanity. Atheists are just as likely to use their atheism as justification for war as a person of faith is. Let's set the record straight. Atheists have as consistent a record of hate (if not more) than Christianity, Islam or Judaism ever had."

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work. [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]

Roman Catholicism became the official religion of the Italian state in 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Treaty between the fascist leader Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. - Encyclopedia Brittanica

I just thought I'd point out that you were incorrect. Also, I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim that secularism is without flaws. Anything which is human in nature is flawed simply because whenever two people are together, there is conflict. But you'll notice that each one of the secularist atrocities don't drag out over generations (crusades/inquisition, the most commonly pointed to) and tend to be on a much smaller scale. Sorry mate, Hitler was Catholic. From his mouth. No one wants to claim him, and everyone fights back and forth about it, but he said himself he was Catholic, so whether or not he was accepted is irrelevant. He saw himself doing work for the Catholic church. And I'm pretty sure that an atheist wouldn't turn right back around and set up a national religion. That's just counter-intuitive.

Irregardless, what we need to do here is to try and come up with some ways to help mitigate the fundamentalist/dogmatic nature of religion. No matter what you think is the problem with the middle east, the people who know that area, also know that the reason the people there are killing each other is because of religion. What's a Suuni, what's a Shi'a? Both are Islamic, so why would they kill each other? It's because they're both Islamic that they kill each other because they feel the other viewpoint is shameful to their 'true' viewpoint. These are the questions we're actually here to try and talk about, not to toss blame back and forth between the religious and the non.

btw the greatest wars of the 1900's were atheistic in nature. The great atheists Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Jung Il, were the imperialists of the 1900's that were responsible for the darkness of war. War is not caused by religion...it is caused by humanity. Atheists are just as likely to use their atheism as justification for war as a person of faith is. Let's set the record straight. Atheists have as consistent a record of hate (if not more) than Christianity, Islam or Judaism ever had.

Interestingly, if abortion were outlawed as murder, then the law could sentence people to death for performing it. Make no mistake It is ABSOLUTELY WRONG for Christians to take the law into their own hands to murder murderers. The New Testament is VERY clear that only the government has the authority to bring murderers to justice. However, it is clear that government does have that authority. So, read it for yourself. Where does the Bible say Christian vigilante justice is okay? No where. However, government using the death penalty to restrain murder is clearly Biblical.

So, Islamic Terrorism is fundamental in the Quran and the Islamic fundamentalists will certainly find themselves engaging in it. However, there is no such thing as vigilante Christiam terrorism in the Bible. A fundamentalist Christian will argue for the use of the death penalty to restrain evil in society. However, if he is truly fundamentalist, he will find no justification for vigilante justice. He will be called to pray, preach, prophesy, persuade...He will never be called to vigilante justice. He will argue for "Just War" against wicked tyrants. But he will never find justification for vigilante justice. It is simply not there.

If you have faith in god, then you don't need to worry about the secularists. You don't need to worry about anyone. The secularists are as much God's children as you. Indeed, they are a part of His plan. So let it roll, love thy neighbor, and quit your worrying.

bk

"The problems arise because of the kinds of people who would curse your theoretical child battling leukemia to a fiery pit for eternity simple because he/she is a Jew/Christian/Muslim/Atheist/etc."

Sadly, the problems you refer to also arise because the people who use services like beliefnet spend enormous amounts of time excusing and coddling those who do blow themselves up on schoolbuses or bomb abortion clinics. When otherwise reasonable people defend the principles that guide zealots to harm, maim, and kill on the grounds that they themselves would never do such things, they enable these monsters in their work. The greatest flaw of popular religion is that the religious never recognize that the only thing seperating them from the stark insanity of an islamic or christian terrorist is moderation. In essence, it is their failure to fully embrace the principles of religion that leads them to regard it as a positive and generative influence. To every muslim who tells me that they don't condone terrorism, but they understand why islam regards the west as evil and seeks to destroy it, to every christian who says that killing is wrong but abortionists are murderers and should be murdered in turn, I send the hope that the consequences of their defense of indefensible behavior be visited upon them in their homes and their lives. Perhaps then they'll understand that religion IS the problem, and while it lives and breathes no man, woman, or child is safe from its mind- and life-destroying influence.

The problem with this view ("Even if they don’t agree, they come to accept the basic authenticity of the other person’s viewpoint.") is that it is a sheltered viewpoint. Many Americans are under the misguided impression that they live in a Christian nation.

Why is this impression misguided? Because the framework and much of the meat of the American governing system is secular in nature. So the only reason American is a Christian nation is because they are the majority of the population. The America of today has a false sense of unity not shared in any other area of the world. The majority of Americans have never lived in an area where they were afraid they would be killed if it were found out what they believed. The majority of Americans have no metal backdrop upon which to form an understanding of issues which make religion such a source of suffering in this world. They see the videos of the 'terrorists' recording their will before they go out and suicide bomb a bus full of tourists, and they think, 'He's nuts."

The problem is that he's not nuts, he's taken his belief system to his heart, and is living his life by it. The secular nature of America has corrupted the Christianity practiced here. A person is not defined solely by what they believe here, whereas there are places in the world in which a person could be killed for something as seemingly small as shaking with the wrong hand.

The clientèle who would use a website like beliefnet are necessarily of a more secular viewpoint, and NOT an accurate representation of their faiths. The problems are not these people. The problems arise because of the kinds of people who would curse your theoretical child battling leukemia to a fiery pit for eternity simple because he/she is a Jew/Christian/Muslim/Atheist/etc.

Cynicism is just a harsh way of telling the truth and I offer no pardon for sounding cynical: Mr Waldman's Beliefnet is just another way that someone has found to profit from religious tension, simliar to how the war on terror is making some companies like Haliburton huge fortunes. Despite his best attempts at sounding altruistic, Waldman's talk of how "a large majority of religious people don't actually care about doctrinal differences" sounds like a sales pitch for his company, similar to the advice given to young demon by the elder demon in C.S. Lewis's The Screw Tape Letters when he says the best way to fill up the halls of hell is to convince people that the devil doesn't exist. In Waldman's case, it is to convince us that doctrine isn't as big an issue as religious people think, and he wants us all to come together on Beliefnet and find our common ground; have us believe that we can put aside the devil in the details, which is what doctrine is. There is no devil, but if he existed, he is gleeeful at this lack of commitment to doctrine. According to the New Testament, the broad road to hell is full of people who stood for nothing and fell for everything. Every religion demands strict adherence to its infallable claims and failure to do so has only bad results. There are over four hundred Christian denominations in America, each seperated by doctrine. The reason people join a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a sect, a cult, is because of that group's doctrine. This is what seperates a Jew from a Christian and people are as likely to seperate themselves from doctrine as a Muslim is of converting to Christianity. Waldman seems glad that Beliefnet is helping people put aside their doctrinal differences. The best way to do that is just to throw religion on the evolutionary scrape-heap where it belongs. However, that would not be good for buisness.

Soon after the English Bible became available to all literate people, a Jesuit visiting London remarked that, without an authority to explain the Bible, leaving a hodge podge of warring factions.

Yes, Luther said that every man is his own priest. As it turns out, every man is now his own theologian as well.

As a child of rural evangelicals and an adult
Anglican with long study of the Bible, I very much doubt that all Christians can be reconciled.