The God Delusion

[Charles Flynn]

Ans rather an extreme point of view. I hope you tellyour children that there are even more crazy people who don't go to church particularly if you are correct in saying religion is on the decline. In fact in some parts of the world it is on the increase. I am not saying this is good or bad however.

[Charles Flynn]

Albert I shall look at all this stuff but I think Dawkins is some sort of virus himself!

[ans]

Ans rather an extreme point of view. I hope you tellyour children that there are even more crazy people who don't go to church particularly if you are correct in saying religion is on the decline. In fact in some parts of the world it is on the increase. I am not saying this is good or bad however.

 

Sure, I tell them there are crazy people who don't too, but I make it very clear that all the ones who do are crazy.

[Charles Flynn]

Well it's a free country I think so you can do that. But remember many churchgoers died to make it so so you can express that opinion.

[Albert Tatlock]

Well it's a free country I think so you can do that. But remember many churchgoers died to make it so so you can express that opinion.

Most of whom died (and continue to die) in conflicts started by religeous nutcases in the first place.

[ans]

Edit: beaten

[Charles Flynn]

Well it's a free country I think so you can do that. But remember many churchgoers died to make it so so you can express that opinion.

Most of whom died (and continue to die) in conflicts started by religeous nutcases in the first place.

 

 

I have already said there are nut cases around some are religious, some are not. War is caused by human fallibility. I don't believe religion is more than an excuse although sometimes it is a contributory factor.

 

None of us have all the answers. I wish we had.

[Albert Tatlock]

Well it's a free country I think so you can do that. But remember many churchgoers died to make it so so you can express that opinion.

Most of whom died (and continue to die) in conflicts started by religeous nutcases in the first place.

 

 

I have already said there are nut cases around some are religious, some are not. War is caused by human fallibility. I don't believe religion is more than an excuse although sometimes it is a contributory factor.

 

None of us have all the answers. I wish we had.

Nice try - but a bit of a cop-out - religeon has been the predominant contributory factor in most wars in human history.

[VinnieK]

Personally, I've always found Dawkins to be a massive bore who's fanatically wedded to a crusade he's not really qualified to fight - I'd much prefer to read the views of a decent philosopher of religious thinking on the matter than Dawkins occassionally unnuanced appreciation of the matter.

 

Albert says that "Most 'bad' is done under the institutions of religeon e.g. the Spanish inquisition, the Pope witholding condoms resulting in the deaths of millions from HIV in Africa, the murder of six million jews, 9/11 and Iraq etc. etc.", but (ignoring the dodgy assessment of the holocaust as a simple example religious persecution) terrible things have happened without the help of religion: The Hundred Years War, The Napoleonic War, The First and Second World Wars, The Vietnam War, The Spanish Civil war, the brutal oppression of political dissidents the world over throughout history, the Soviet gulags and mass, callous starvations under both the Chinese and Soviet forms of Marxism, to name just a few examples. The lesson learned from such conflicts and bloodshed is that religion is not the source of all evil, nor are its institutions guilty of presiding over the worst moments of humanity's history, and to treat them as such is shortsighted, neglecting the true threats and dangerous ways of thinking that plague humanity.

 

The blame is instead more accurately laid at the door of doctrinaire thinking which allows people to justify any means by the fulfilment of that doctrine. Religion is merely one example where this can happen, certain political ideologies are another (Stalinism for instance was a wholly atheist ideology that nevertheless resulted in millions of deaths and countless instances of torture which was after the fact justified as being for the good or necessary for society, similarly the Nazi's appealed not to religion to justify their viciousness but the good of the German state). The history of humanity has demonstrated, countless times over, that we do not need religion to provoke violence and suffering on a massive scale; a part of us is simply naturally drawn to grand causes, secular or religious, that promise us utopia and in doing so justify even our most base actions. Violence in the name of religion is nothing more than one manifestation of this aspect of our nature, religion itself being just another form of doctrine amongst many to which many people are drawn (of whom some will adopt with a dangerous level of zealotry).

 

I'm an atheist, of a vaguely scientific (but certainly logic based) background, but I have to say I've never had a problem with people of faith. Nor, as taught by experience, do I believe that their faith must inherently limit their abilities as scientists or that their acceptance of a certain belief must necessarily mean they're incapable of subtle and perceptive thought. Undoubtably some are a bit mental, and a few of those dangerous, but such is the world that those people would soon find another way to justify their own brutality in the absence of religion.

 

You write as though faith and logic are comparable and equal - they are not

 

True, Albert, but they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive either. What you're talking about isn't so much logic as it is a variant of a common sense view of the world as suggested by the physical facts (logic is a very different beast which concerns itself with the validity of an argument's structure, and not much use at all in determining whether something is right or wrong).

[Charles Flynn]

Albert,I asked originally for research findings on this - have you any? I know it seems that way - Crusades, Bush/Blair, Islam suicide bombers, etc etc but I would be interested in seeing serious research. Perhaps the arms industry could fund it? Or is that asking too much? I doubt if the Pope will!

 

Thanks VinnieK - you've encapsulated my views!

[Chinahand]

Albert,I asked originally for research findings on this - have you any? I know it seems that way - Crusades, Bush/Blair, Islam suicide bombers, etc etc but I would be interested in seeing serious research. Perhaps the arms industry could fund it? Or is that asking too much? I doubt if the Pope will!

 

Thanks VinnieK - you've encapsulated my views!

 

You could start looking at sites like this: INCORE Guide to Internet sources on Religion and Conflict. I'd be quite interested in reading articles a bit like this:

 

The Search for Identity: Religion, Ethnicity and Political Violence

By Yusuf Bangura

A UNRISD paper written in preparation for the World Summit for Social Development that focuses on countries that confront the seemingly intractable problems of social conflict, institutional breakdown and mass alienation.

 

My trouble with the "religion is the cause of all war" argument is that it seems to make such emotions as pride, envy, avarice, clannishness, distrust of strangers, revenge etc religious emotions. Very seriously all the main religions attempt to break down and discount these emotions. If you took away the religion and left these emotions intact then I doubt if the history of the world would be particularly different.

 

Its interesting the Economist magazine has an article about the Pushtunwali and honour among them, subtitled: Thieves, murderers, rapists; and how the Pushtuns' ancient tribal code is fighting for survival against radical Islam. The values of honour and revenge, feud and chastity are seen as being very distict to Islam. I think that is important and a major problem in the Islam/modernity debate. The cultural values of the middle east should be seen as distinct from the cultural values Islam espouses - The Arab, the Turkmen, the Persian have very strong cultural values that are disctinct from the Islamic values of the Indonesians, or Malaysians for example.

 

My beef with religion is its emphasis on reveled truth - I simply do not believe a word of it. Truth has to be struggled with interpreted, reanalysed as circumstances change - the idea that it can be fixed in a book written many hundreds of years ago is just so much simplicity.

 

Many religious people understand this and fudge their reveled texts, but unfortunately fundamentalism is definitely on the rise - this is a world wide phenomenon: Hinduism, Islam, Christianity are all displaying this dangerous and divisive behaviour. All right thinking people should oppose it - its simplicities will generate conflict on a massive scale.

[Charles Flynn]

Thank you Chinahand for these sources. Like you I do not agree with Fundamentalism. It smacks too much that some outside source is totally in control of your actions. I do not believe this is right.

[Albert Tatlock]

I do agree that there would seem to be many causes of war, and a lot of research has been done into suggesting these causes.

 

However, what strikes me is that much if this research starts from the proposition that we've always had countries, and ignores the fact that many countries have come into being following the dismemberment and destruction of a variety of large empires and civilisations which previously spread their own doctrines and religeons across tribal regions (e.g. Germany was subdivided into many non-cooperating tribal areas until the Romans invaded), with the invaders often enslaving those of different religeons or race in the process. Don't forget that the Romans and Vikings etc. were backed by their gods - just look at our calender and days of the week etc. to see the influence these gods have in everyday life even today.

 

There never used to be a Germany or a France etc. and the involvement of religeon in the formation of these countries should not be underestimated. Early history shows that many countries have been formed purely on a religeous, racial, or tribal culture basis. The point is, that the further back in history you go the more that you see the roots of war are in race and religeon, because the religeous belief systems evolved with each race, became the culture they exported and enforced and were the foundation of modern day countries.

 

A major objective of forming the EU was to integrate Europe so that war would be less likely between European nations. Simply put, the more countries we have, the more chance there is of war and of more individuals using a variety of factors to get populations to back them. War between people has always been a fact of human life - but I would still say the roots of most wars lay in human differences - ignorance and superstition (or religeon as it is called today) - made worse in modern times through too many countries, rising populations and a lack of resources.

 

The real problem today is that there are simply too many people on the planet and we are multiplying like a virus and resources are becoming scarcer. The population of the world didn't reach 1 billion until about 1800 AD before which resources were abundent and most wars were not fought over resources. Until people address the fact that there are too many of us we are in deep doo doo in the longterm. We are where we are because of our ancestors, and much of that path they laid for us was dictated to them by their gods and beliefs, including 1 billion Catholics who use the their own belief system (no family planning) as nothing more than a weapon by which they have become dominant. All major problems in the world today are caused by the differences between Christianity and Islam - these people will be the death of us all.

[VinnieK]

a variety of large empires and civilisations which previously spread their own doctrines and religeons across tribal regions (e.g. Germany was subdivided into many non-cooperating tribal areas until the Romans invaded), with the invaders often enslaving those of different religeons or race in the process.

 

The Romans never really invaded Germany, much less conquered and enslaved its people. There were punitive and pre-emptive campaigns into the western and southern extremities of what we consider Germany (as well as a couple of failed schemes to shorten the Roman security lines by pushing its boundaries further noth), but there was never any real economic incentive to conquer the Germanic tribes, and indeed those tribes lived and progressed in tandem (if not always harmoniously) with the Roman empire, serving in its armies, trading, and so forth (in fact by the latter days of the Western Roman Empire, the empire's army featured a very strong contingent of Germans who sought employment beyond their tribal regions, and were accepted despite the fact that the majority of germans at that time followed a form of Christianity that was deemed a heresy by the Romans themselves).

 

Also, to clear one thing up: The Romans (along with other ancient cultures) rarely enslaved populations. In the ancient world it was common practice to enslave soldiers that had been defeated in battle and citizens of towns that resisted a siege (being considered a legitimate part of the "booty" of that particular battle). It's not pretty, but people were not enslaved on the basis that people were from a different race or religion (indeed there are examples of a dominant culture enslaving members of its own culture after rebelling and being defeated) so much as they were enslaved on the basis that they took part in, and lost a particular battle.

 

Don't forget that the Romans and Vikings etc. were backed by their gods - just look at our calender and days of the week etc. to see the influence these gods have in everyday life even today.

But they did not conquer in the name or because of their Gods. In fact the Romans are a particularly bad example for you to use, since they were more given to adopting the worship of foreign gods into their own belief system than imposing theirs on others. The Roman empire's initial expansion was due more to security concerns (after Rome was sacked by the Gauls it was deemed necessary to eliminate the Gallic tribes as a threat) and economic benefits. An excellent example of this is the invasion of Britiain, the decision to do so being influenced by three factors:

 

Economic - Britain was rumoured to have huge reserves of mineral resources

Military - Gallic and Belgic raiding bands preying on Gaul tended to operate from Britain

Political - the Empire had been shaken by Caligula's reign and its violent end, his successor, Claudius, saw a successful invasion of Britain as a way to boost his popularity with the legions, enhance his military reputation (which at that time was non-existant) and consolidate his rule.

 

The Vikings, on the other hand, were far more motivated by the acquisition of land, reputation in battle, and material reward than religion.

 

There never used to be a Germany or a France etc. and the involvement of religeon in the formation of these countries should not be underestimated. Early history shows that many countries have been formed purely on a religeous, racial, or tribal culture basis.

 

Actually this isn't true and isn't borne out by the research at all (and I recommend reading From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms to see what research in this area really shows), being a fallacy dating back to the 19th century nationalist historians. The migrating germanic and gothic tribes that stepped into the vaccuum when the Roman empire started to disintegrate in the western provinces were essentially little more than multiethnic and multicultural armies, featuring Huns, Alans, Scythians, Thracians, a variety of disparate germanic tribes, as well as romanized inhabitants of the empire, all of whom were organised around a homogenous gothic (or whatever) noble elite and banded together through common self interest rather than cultural and religious links - in this way they operated much like the multiethnic/lingual/cultural armies of the Roman empire. Not only this, but they came to dominate former provinces (such as Gaul, now modern France) that were inhabited by Romanized Gauls (who themselves were descended from a disparate collection of peoples) with whom they shared little in common.

 

The point is, that the further back in history you go the more that you see the roots of war are in race and religeon, because the religeous belief systems evolved with each race, became the culture they exported and enforced and were the foundation of modern day countries.

 

As I've suggested above, this isn't true, and isn't represented in historical research into the matter. In nearly every case the roots of war are found in concerns of security, economic, and material gain. The Etruscans and the Sabines were conquered by the Romans not because cultural differences provoked them to (indeed the early Romans shared much with both peoples), but because it was deemed unacceptable to have potentially hostile neighbours (especially the formerly dominant Etruscans), not to mention the benefits of having access to those people's land and coastal regions for the establishment of trade.

 

In short, the idea that humans have throughout history conquered and waged war solely due to cultural and religious differences is a myth dreampt up by 19th century nationalist historians and politicians who sought to unify their nations and justify their own actions by portraying themselves as a noble and dominant culture who had demonstrated their right to prominance and violently acquired prosperity by the conquest of other cultures. Sure religion et al has been used to justify wars, or to romanticize them, but that does not make them the cause, nor does it imply that past conflicts (or similar ones) wouldn't have happened and been justified by other means (indeed, read the Roman histories and you'll find that war was rarely, if ever, justified using religion - "civilization" and the well being of the Roman state were far more popular themes for such a purpose).

[Albert Tatlock]

So...an interesting question would be..."did Sadam Hussein die yesterday ultimately because of Religeon?"