Theism, Atheism and the body counts

[Tim the Skeptic]

I am constantly reading in posts on this forum that Christianity is responsible for slaughtering millions over the centuries. And I am constantly reading the Christian rebuttal that Communist Atheism slaughtered more. It seems that many believe that the "theism" with the lowest body count is the more ethical belief. I believe this issue has been greatly oversimplified.

Was Hitler a Christian? Is that why he slaughtered "under-humans"? I don't think so. I believe a case could be made that Hitler cynically used Christianity in order to get believers to do his bidding. But there were too many German and Polish Catholics or German and British Prostestants killing each other to believe that WWII was about religion.

I believe European nationalism plays a much bigger role in all the European wars since the Crusades than is recognized in this forum.

As for the slaughters in the atheist Communist states, they seem to me to be more about power than religion. Anything seen as a threat to the status-quo power structure is ruthlessly suppressed. Did Stalin shoot all his army officiers because they believed in God?

The debate topic: Is Faith or non-Faith really responsible for all these slaughters or is there more to it than that?

[youngborean]

I think an indictment of Stalinism for persecuting the religious and trying to stamp out religion may be called for, but labelling all of Marxism as being anti-religious would be going too far.

I would agree with you in a general sense. However, if someone was a "fundamentalist" Marxist they would have to be anti-religion because Marx was clearly anti-religion. That's not to say there aren't more progressive "Marxists" who tolerate or even sometimes pratice religion.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

I'm sorry, Platypus. But your's is in Philosophy, maybe we could all agree to just consider this the Politics franchise of your original thread. Again, I'm really sorry.

Hey I didn't mean to sound all testy about it. It does not really matter. This discussion is more political anyway.

However, if someone was a "fundamentalist" Marxist they would have to be anti-religion because Marx was clearly anti-religion.

I have scanned most of Marx's work, and have never gotten that impression. Are there any specific quotes that illustrate this belief?

[juliod]

Just because a war is "in the name of God" does not necessarily make it so at the core.

But under what standards do you make claims about the "core" of a war? You can't pull the No True Scotsman fallacy that most christians try to use with Hitler. We need to go by what people said that were fighting for at the time, not what a historian may later identify as the suposedly root causes. As for war, it's still "God and Country" for many people.

I guarantee 95% of the time I can give a rationale for outbreak that does not relate to religion.

Of course you can. Every major (or even minor) event in history has multiple causes. OTOH, we always here from theists how atheism is responsible for everything done by the communists even when there is not an even indirect, tangential connection.

I think the "bloody history" of religion is vastly exagerrated.

I don't see how it can be. So much of the mass violence in western history is directly related to religion and religious difference. The fact that there may be other causes as well does not excuse the religious contribution.

Even today we see many people waging war under direct religious motivation. Either they think god wants them to, or that god has given them specific lands that they must fight for, or else their opponents are so profane that they must be killed. Many of the major actors on the world stage directly cite god and religion in support of mass violence.

In those cases where religion is not a direct contributor to war it is usually a major supporter. Aside from a few minority religions for whom their religious pacifism trumps their political views, religions in a nation at war universally provide support and encouragement. Typically, religions preach peace in wartime only to the extent that they can blame the national enemy for taking it away. In this way all modern western wars have had a strong religions component.

Consider this. Would a reduction in the exuberance of atheists reduce war and large-scale violence? No, that would be an absurd opinion. But would a reduction in religious zeal serve the same purpose? Yes, it obviously would.

Neither I nor any other reasonable atheist is blaming all violence and war on theism. But it does not help us to ignore or pretend not to see the religious contribution to violence. It is perhaps more important than ever since low-intensity-conflict, or "people's war", has become the major form of conflict. It enourages us to misunderstand our enemies, which happens to be what our political leaders desperately want to do.

DanZ

[Tim the Skeptic]

juliod wrote:

Consider this. Would a reduction in the exuberance of atheists reduce war and large-scale violence? No, that would be an absurd opinion. But would a reduction in religious zeal serve the same purpose? Yes, it obviously would.

Wow, very interesting point. I still think that WWI and WWII are wars of nationalism. I think a good case could be made that religion was used by all sides as a propangda tool, but I still believe these wars would have been fought even if all sides were athiest. These wars were primarily fought by post Enlightenment Western nations. Religion is not the motivating force in the 20th century that it might have been in the Middle Ages. I don't believe the war between China and Japan in WWII was fought over religion. Japan wanted to create an Empire and become the dominant economic power in the Pacific, they certainly didn't want to convert people to Zen or Shinto.

However, your point is very well taken when considering the Middle East.

[The Persnickety Platypus]

But under what standards do you make claims about the "core" of a war? You can't pull the No True Scotsman fallacy that most christians try to use with Hitler. We need to go by what people said that were fighting for at the time, not what a historian may later identify as the suposedly root causes. As for war, it's still "God and Country" for many people.

In other words, disregard the real cause, just go with whatever random reasoning they provide?

Is this how successful scientists and historians commonly determine their resolutions? I sure hope not.

Hitler was openly anti-christian (aside from when he intended to rally his throngs, of course). I can't comprehend how anyone can cite religioin as a driving factor in the outbreak of WW2.

I don't see how it can be. So much of the mass violence in western history is directly related to religion and religious difference. The fact that there may be other causes as well does not excuse the religious contribution.

Looking back at history, I conclude that religion is rarely the cause, merely the justification.

The Crusades were instigated by greed, jealousy, and intolerance... none of which was greatly influenced by religion (considering Christianity openly condemns each of these things). The Europeans could have been athiests or Buddhists, it did not matter. They were bound determined to go to war no matter what the case. Christianity, however, presented itself as a convulted justification and rallying tool of the war proctors.

This is not to say religion has no effect, of course. However, just simply passing off the Crusades, Inquisition, ect at fault of that evil Bible is a vast oversimplification.

Consider this. Would a reduction in the exuberance of atheists reduce war and large-scale violence? No, that would be an absurd opinion.

I certainly think it would, as a matter of fact. Extremeism is dangerous in all forms. Athiests are often mistreated by the religious, and vice-versa as well.

But it does not help us to ignore or pretend not to see the religious contribution to violence. It enourages us to misunderstand our enemies, which happens to be what our political leaders desperately want to do.

Indeed. However, the oversimplification of religious atrocities presents the greatest misunderstanding of all. Far to often we point at religion as the great oppressor, while completely negating the main causes. Nevermind all the greed and intolerance that lies at the core of ALL wars. Ignore those. All we need to do is abolish religion, and we can all skip merrily off to utopia! Right?

No. Religion is the spine of society. The source of all hope, and for many, happiness. It is here to stay, and with it, the many good and charitable actions it inspires.

But of course, no one notices the benefits religion offers. Those sorts of things never make the 5:00 news. No, they prefer to show the real juicy stuff; torched cars, violent brash riots, kids strapped to dynamite. Now THAT'S entertainment.

[youngborean]

I have scanned most of Marx's work, and have never gotten that impression. Are there any specific quotes that illustrate this belief?

I posted a Marx quote earlier in this thread that illustrated this point. Here another:

Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

- Of particular siginificance due to the widespread opium addictions at the time.

from
http://www.wisdomquotes.com/001630.html


another:
"The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion."
(Karl Marx / 1818-1883)

From
http://atheisme.free.fr/Quotes/Marx.htm

This last quote is particularly interesting, considering in this statement it is the "first requisite", meaning a violent fundamentalist Marxist would consider it their first obligation to attempt to abolish religion.

[Tim the Skeptic]

First, at the time Marx wrote this, weren't most churches state-supported (Church of England, Church of Sweden, Russian Orthodox Church, etc.)? Does this context change the meaning of what Marx was saying? I think that maybe Marx was saying that in order to create a "workers' paradise" the state (and its religion) had to be abolished. But I'm not a Marxist and I could be wrong, I just find the context interesting.

Now back to the body count issue. The Soviet Union definitely discriminated against religions. But it seems uneven. Didn't churches exist throughout the history of the Soviet Union? Wasn't there a continuing Jewish and Muslim population? To prove that atheism is solely responsible for deaths, shouldn't it be the case that belonging to a religion was an immediate death sentence?

[youngborean]

I am not saying that Atheism is to blame. I really wouldn't even go as far to say that Marx is to blame. Hateful people decided that the religious should be killed. They used atheism or Marx to accomplish their hateful actions. Your contextual argument may certainly be correct about Marx's intent. But this is exactly the same a Christianity being blamed for the actions of Violent church authorities, etc. People will act with no attention to context, and will come up with a variety of excuses to justify their actions. Not to say that there aren't possible negative perspectives that can be gleaned from these world views, I believe it is truly a matter of perception. The problem as I see it was that these people were already bent on control, which is the biggest cause for violence, the lust after power. The person can be religious or not, but if they do not control this urge, they have a higher affinity to violence. There is a common thread among humanity that we want to control things. Religion can be used as a device for control, this is when it is totally harmful. But so can any philosophy, even if it's original intent was a presumption of egalitarian principles. I guess that is the gist of my problem with proping up one world-view as the "problem", because all societies exhibit a desire for control on some level regardless of the social model the choose. It is this desire that we should collectively try to make tangible and to reduce if peace is truly what we are after.

[Tim the Skeptic]

youngborean,

Good post, I totally agree.

Is there a thread on religion being used to control people? It seems that many on this thread feel that religion, while not the cause of a war, has been used to influence people once a nation's leaders have decided to go to war.

For example, the American Civil War was not a religious war. Both sides were predominantly Protestant. But I have read that religious revivals were increasingly popular as the war dragged on, especially on the Southern side. Both sides thought God was on their side. If all the soldiers, North and South, had been atheists without hopes of an afterlife, would they have been as eager to fight? Or was religion used to prop up morale?

[youngborean]

I like that question. I would probably pick the former. Once a war is going it seems like it would be easier to convince your troops that there is an eternal benefit to fighting, especially when no immediate benefit is apparent. It's very similar to the arrival of suicide bombings as a military tatic. The eternal promise of shahid status promised to the bombers overwhelms their obvious immediate despair in the situation.

But I really don't think that an atheist would be without reason to fight in most situations. Most fights seem to start because one group wronged another (be it over goods or resources, land etc.). There is a tangible event that people rally around. I think atheists too could look to the future in humanistic terms and still want to protect whats theirs or what they believe in and use force if necessary. They may be less likely to stick it out though, once they believed there was no benefit in fighting.