Christianity and a history of blood

[Alex]

Another common discussion:

With the increased visibility of religious extremism and the dangers it poses to the world, why should Christianity be held separate from any other group that spawns zealots who are willing to trade the lives of others for their own beliefs?

While Christians claim to love people there are innumerable examples of the opposite being the case; from historical abuses of power and self-interest, acceptance and condoning of social crime, and the breeding of horrific acts by individuals (hate crimes, abortion killers, domestic violence - at the tip of the modern iceberg). This isn't even including the US' war on all objectors, approvingly justified based on Christian good.

How can christian fundamentalists and extremists be any different than islamic fundamentalists willing to destroy for their cause. From this, how can christians claim a better religion?

[Josh]

In the way of an immediate, to the point answer, I would respond with the following thoughts:

1) In regard to 'religious zealots willing to trade the lives of others for their own beliefs':

Though one could find examples from every religion of certain adherents fitting this description, it is unfair to immediately assume that their actions are caused by something inherent within their religion. Muslims don't always act like a Muslim should (as defined by the Qu'ran). Jews don't always obey the Torah. Christians don't automatically obey Jesus-- they have free will.

In the case of Christianity in particular, you find some of the most challenging teachings in existence urging peace, love, and forgiveness that can be found-- teachings which have inspired countless heroes of history from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. to Mother Teresa (and that's just scratching the surface).

In a nutshell, just because people who claim to be Christians (whether feigned or genuine) have at times in history been the perpetrators of heinous crimes, it doesn't follow that their religion is responsible for those choices.

One might still wonder, however, if Christianity emphasizes love and peace, why it seems that Christians have done more than their share of evil. Wouldn't we at least expect less evil, but instead are faced with blights on history such as the Inquisition and certain elements of the Crusades?

First off, I think it would be very difficult to qualitatively measure the evils of Christians against the evils committed by people of other belief systems. A good case can be made that atheists (practical or formal) have produced as much if not more deaths in history than any other group- just add up the murders committed by Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Pol Pot, and the like...

But, still, if God is on His throne, wouldn't we expect that His people would act better than they have?

I have a couple thoughts in answer:

The first is that Christianity places great emphasis on the fact that God allows humanity to choose to obey or disobey. Most Christians would agree that God does not force all of His followers to obey Him.

Secondly, as C.S. Lewis points out, it is a natural fact that the greatest evils come from people, ideas, or things that, ironically, have great potential for good.

Almost all of the most notoriously evil humans in history had many qualities that were exemplary- exceptional intelligence, willingness to work hard or sacrifice for their cause, patience, powers of persuasion, etc.. It is precisely because they had so many skills which most people would consider 'good', that, when turned in one or more areas to evil, they became so notorious.
In short, the best things, if they do become corrupt, become the worst things.

Also, if you are open at all to what Christians believe about a spiritual realm, then it is understandable that because Christians are about God's work in the earth, the enemy of God, satan, employs everything at his disposal to corrupt that work-- especially from within.

2)How can Christians claim a better religion, you ask?

I think it is fair to consider how Christians actually do live when considering the merits of Christianity. Certainly a seeker would want to look at those who had committed evil in the name of Christ. The Bible itself warns Christians that we will get a bad reputation if our deeds are evil.

But, equally, one should consider those who have done great good in the name of Christ as well. And there we have plentiful examples- examples which, I believe, outshine the others once one becomes acquainted with them, such as the abolition of slavery, the founding of hospitals, the care of the poor and downtrodden.

But, ultimately, we must judge a religion more on what it formally teaches than by how people who claim to follow it live. The standards of Christianity are very high in this regard (the subject of violence) compared to most other religions.

Lastly, I would highly recommend that in discussing "extremists" or "zealots" that we define our terms. This answer has assumed that those words refer to those willing to commit acts that would be almost universally accepted as evil. However, some today refer to anyone who is wholeheartedly devoted to anything as a zealot. And that's just plain silly. If that's the definition, then please sign me up as a zealot for Christ.

[Josh]

Another thought occurs to me. One (especially one of the pyschologist persuasion ) might understandably wonder if the psychology of religion itself, with it's absolutism about things like heaven and hell and good and evil and the importance of doctrine, might be the real culprit in regard to religiously motivated violence, in spite of all the principles about peace and love that religions promote on the surface.

I would respond first that the idea of 'religion's absolutism' is a dubious claim that needs to be investigated. Many of the things popularly considered 'absolutist' about Christianity are nothing of the sort, while other elements not often considered are surprisingly absolute.

But in any case, one could argue that relativistic cultures or belief systems give rise to just as much bloodshed, not to mention that one can be incredibly absolutist (in the bad sense) and not be religious at all.

Like many arguments from this sector, we find that these kind of claims are easily turned back on themselves and demonstrate little in the end.

[Midnight Romance]

I'm going to agree with all the above and provide some quick evidence to support it.

Religion DOES NOT make people kill other people. All groups of people have done it. World War II was fought over the ideas and beliefs of Karl Marx, an irreligious atheist.

83,988,000 died in war over his ideas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

While all 11 crusades in total killed about 9 million people (although some say up to 11 million):

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070102191338AAAFd3t

Atheists have killed more people in total than all other religions have killed COMBINED for their beliefs. If there's any religious belief we should be using this argument against, it's that one.

[moritz]

Jun 24, 2009 17:34:27 GMT -8 Midnight Romance said:

I'm going to agree with all the above and provide some quick evidence to support it.

Religion DOES NOT make people kill other people. All groups of people have done it. World War II was fought over the ideas and beliefs of Karl Marx, an irreligious atheist.

83,988,000 died in war over his ideas.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

While all 11 crusades in total killed about 9 million people (although some say up to 11 million):

answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070102191338AAAFd3t

Atheists have killed more people in total than all other religions have killed COMBINED for their beliefs. If there's any religious belief we should be using this argument against, it's that one.

This post is seriously disturbing. I don't know whether I should laugh or cry. Here's your logic:

Atheism ---inspired----> Karl Marx ---wrote---> Communist Manifesto ----inspired---> Joseph Stalin--->killed millions => Atheism killed millions



Not only are you belittleing the number of victims of the crusades (by the way neglecting the victims of witchtrials and the lethal persecution of heretics by the holy inquisition), which have been fought explicitly in the name of the Lord, but you're also blatantly claiming that WWII was fought over the ideas of Karl Marx! By this you are reducing a very complex set of circumstances to one minor trickle of it. And one can argue that even this trickle is misrepresented (you obviously have no clue of the teachings of Karl Marx. Few people have).

WWII was started not by Marx-inspired Russia but by German aggression and Hitler-Germany was about as marxist as Dick Cheney (Marxists and communists were put into concentration camps in Nazi-Germany). Anyway, what's important is this: WWII was not fought because of or in the name of atheism. It was not fought over the ideas of Marx (Hitler also attacked his northern and western non-marxist neighbours). Atheism was neither a casus belli nor a military objective. Hitler did not persecute jews in order to bring about a world without religion. Hitler did not divide the world into irreligious and religious. He did not persecute all religious people. Hitler strived for world power and racial superiority.
Let's face it: the vast majority of Germans who voted Hitler, approved of him, praised him, participated in his institutions and organizations and executed his will were... Christians. Let it sink.

Following your logic we would have to conclude that because the concentration camp warden was a Christian, the killing of jews was the result of Christianity. Does that make sense? No!

You are carelessly attributing the total sum of casualties of WWII (including military causalties produced by all participants, the holocaust, military crime, etc.) to atheism. Well then we can also attribute the total sum of casualties commited by Christians throughout history for whatever reason, no matter how unrelated to their faith, to Christianity. If someone kills a person because of jealousy or greed and he happens to be a Christian, it must have been Christianity that made him do it, right? I hope that by now you understand the flaw in your rationality.

The motivation behind the crussades was primarily religious, just like the motivation behind 9/11. The motivation behind WWII had nothing to do with atheism. Karl Marx happened to be an atheist, but Karl Marx didn't call for a World War, nor for national socialism, race superiority, a holocaust, a religious war or the killing of believers. The comparison between the crusades and WWII is simply a false analogy.
Richard Dawkins satirizes the point you were trying to make by stating that if we attribute the wickedness of Hitler and Stalin to their atheism, we might as well attribute it to their mustaches (something else they had in common)... Did you know that Hitler was an artist before he became a dictator? A painter to be precise. Why don't we attribute his murders to art?

[Josh]

From my perspective, MR is overstating the case and Mo is understating it.

Certainly the deaths of WWII can't be boiled down to the single cause of atheism... or to any single cause for that matter.

However, atheism isn't exactly akin to moustaches. Atheism is a belief which directly influences one's moral choices; mustaches are not. So, it's much more reasonable to ask, "how did Stalin's atheism influence his propensity toward violence?" than how did his moustache do so?

I certainly see a link between Nietschean philosophy and Nazi concentration camps, for instance, but a more direct link is social Darwinism rather than atheism.

I think it's easier to make the case that atheism is a major contributing factor in the deaths perpetrated by communist regimes, however. The logic is this: the idea of inevitable class struggle is incompatable with Christianity. This is why Marxist governments do their best to destroy Christianity and other religious expressions. Once religious beliefs are done away with, and therefore the underpinning of the belief in absolute moral precepts, it is very easy for such systems to begin to define morality as what is pragmatic. And when morality is defined that way, the slaughter begins, especially if you believe in that class warfare is not only inevitable, but positive.

[moritz]

Jun 25, 2009 15:37:42 GMT -8 Josh said:

Atheism is a belief which directly influences one's moral choices; mustaches are not. So, it's much more reasonable to ask, "how did Stalin's atheism influence his propensity toward violence?" than how did his moustache do so?

You're missing the point. Neither marxism nor stalinism are the inevitable or even logical consequences of atheism. It is a long way from not believing in God to killing a person, let alone commit genocide. I know this is hard for you to understand but not believing in universal morals doesn't mean that one loses all scruples and feels the desire to kill someone.
Hitler and Stalin were ideologically worlds apart. They were enemies with different agendas and they didn't team up in the name of atheism trying to rid the world of religion. Even if atheism has more influence on personal decisions than a mustache, atheism had as much to do with the attack on Poland as Hitler's mustache. You don't have to be an atheist in order to become a killer. And I know you know that.

Jun 25, 2009 15:37:42 GMT -8 Josh said:

I think it's easier to make the case that atheism is a major contributing factor in the deaths perpetrated by communist regimes, however. The logic is this: the idea of inevitable class struggle is incompatable with Christianity. This is why Marxist governments do their best to destroy Christianity and other religious expressions.

That's not quite right.

First off: Marxism is not the logical consequence of atheism. Marxism is a political ideology if it's own.

Next: The incompatibility of marxism and christianity is something I would like to put into question. You don't have to be an atheist to accept the detection that a small number of people is suppressing a large number of people economically. You don't have to be an atheist to find that unfair either.*
According to Marx, class struggles are happening ever since the class society came into being. He developed a theorie on why class struggles are taking place. According to Marx the suppression and exploitation of the working proletariat (the vast majority of the population) is the result of the greed of the bourgeouisie (the few owners of the means of production). That's not incompatible with Christianity at all.
Class struggles, are the inevitable consequence of the lower-class-masses realizing their underprivileged status and a will to fight against their exploitation. You say, to embrace the concept of violent revolution is incompatible with Christianity. Depending on your interpretation of Christianity that might be true. But I don't think history bears you out. Throughout history you'll find Christians fighting violently against what they perceive to be evil institutions. How many Christians are among the armed forces of the USA, who did their best to overthrow the social order of Afghanistan? The final destination of Communism is a classless society without need of a state and without suppression. Is that incompatible with Christianity?

The enemy in marxism is not automatically the believer but the exploiter. And the exploiter could perfectly be a believer as well as an atheist. And that's cruxial. As a matter of fact, I would expect you to assume that atheists, who don't feel obliged by a higher force to keep their greed and selfishness in check would be the enemy N°1 of the proletarians. Equally, the marxist can be a Christian.

I repeat because this is so important:

1) Marxism fights the suppressor regardless of his religious leanings. Religion is not the primary concern of marxism and atheism is not the sine qua non of the communist.

2) Christianity's teachings are not incompatible with the overthrowing of social order. One could argue whether Christians would accept violence as a means of revolution but the answer would be different depending on whether you ask Robin or Marcus.

That's the theoretical part of it. Now let's be careful. The history of soviet communism seems to support your point that it is incompatible with Christianity. But the bolshevists and later the soviets were worlds apart from the theory. Karl Marx atheist conviction was that religion was caused by the misery the masses found themselves in. To him religion was a kind of drug that would make life more agreeable. His idea to overcome religion was through means of improvement of the living conditions, not by suppression and persecution of believers. The persecution and murder of believers is not the logical consequence of Marx's atheism. On the contrary. If Marx thinks that religion is fed by suppression, then suppressing the religious only means feeding their faith (as the soviet regime as a matter of fact did).

The church was an enemy to the soviet regime because of its resistance. Was the church resistance the logical consequence of the incompatible natures of church and communism? Or was it the logical consequence of the incompatible social reality the soviet dictatorship provided? These are two pairs of shoes. During WWII the church became more supportive of the system and as a consequence Stalin reopened 20.000 churches. This shows us that believers were only a thorn in the eye of the regime as long as they opposed. If Stalin had been acting for the purposes of atheism, he would have initiated a holocaust instead of making concessions. The mere fact that the orthodox church of Russia today is increasingly sanctifying Stalin gives evidence for the fact that this was not a struggle of atheism vs. faith.

Jun 25, 2009 15:37:42 GMT -8 Josh said:

And when morality is defined that way, the slaughter begins, especially if you believe in that class warfare is not only inevitable, but positive.

I don't see any correlation between the disbelief in universal morals and the automatic beginning of slaughter. Where is the evidence? If slaughter correlated negatively with belief in universal morals you wouldn't find religiously motivated slaughter. But you do.

As a person who does not believe in universal morals I can tell you that I don't feel the slightest wish to slaughter anybody. Neither do I want to kill anybody (without slaughter), nor use violence against anybody. Ironically, I find slaughter counterproductive and entirely unpragmatic. And all of this regardless of the fact that I think the holocaust ultimately means nothing to the cosmos... This must be hard for you.



*regardless of whether you and I share that view or not.

[Josh]

You're missing the point. Neither marxism nor stalinism are the inevitable or even logical consequences of atheism. It is a long way from not believing in God to killing a person, let alone commit genocide. I know this is hard for you to understand but not believing in universal morals doesn't mean that one loses all scruples and feels the desire to kill someone.

Not necessarily, of course. But I think that the shock of going from a religious worldview of absolute rights and wrongs to an increasingly atheistic, relativistic worldview, did create a whole lot of nihilism in which violence seemed much more justified.

"If there is no God, everything is permitted."

Ivan Karamazov, in Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov

This was a prescient prediction of what was coming down the line in Russia's future.

Yes, intellectual atheists have been scrambling from the beginning to find a firmer intellectual basis for the moral code they instinctually find within themselves, but for the masses, the loss of the conviction of moral absolutes has been devastating.

[Josh]

First off: Marxism is not the logical consequence of atheism. Marxism is a political ideology if it's own.

I didn't say it was, but I am saying that Marxism presupposes atheism, or at least rejection of Christianity.

Next: The incompatibility of marxism and christianity is something I would like to put into question. You don't have to be an atheist to accept the detection that a small number of people is suppressing a large number of people economically. You don't have to be an atheist to find that unfair either.*
According to Marx, class struggles are happening ever since the class society came into being. He developed a theorie on why class struggles are taking place. According to Marx the suppression and exploitation of the working proletariat (the vast majority of the population) is the result of the greed of the bourgeouisie (the few owners of the means of production). That's not incompatible with Christianity at all.
Class struggles, are the inevitable consequence of the lower-class-masses realizing their underprivileged status and a will to fight against their exploitation.

Agreed that none of these features of marxism are incompatible with Christianity. But you haven't described the whole of Marxism- more on that in a bit.

You say, to embrace the concept of violent revolution is incompatible with Christianity.

When did I say that? In fact, I am divided on that issue.

[Josh]

During WWII the church became more supportive of the system and as a consequence Stalin reopened 20.000 churches. This shows us that believers were only a thorn in the eye of the regime as long as they opposed. If Stalin had been acting for the purposes of atheism, he would have initiated a holocaust instead of making concessions. .

According to my Russian assistant who's father was a Soviet with a military career, Stalin temporarily opened Churches because he was desparate to get the support of his people and to build their morale. It wasn't because the masses were "supportive of the system".

Stalin and his successors did repeatedly initiate a holocaust against genuine Christians. Just as in China and in Nazi Germany, the only churches that were allowed by the state were neutered puppets of the regime.

As a person who does not believe in universal morals I can tell you that I don't feel the slightest wish to slaughter anybody. Neither do I want to kill anybody (without slaughter), nor use violence against anybody. Ironically, I find slaughter counterproductive and entirely unpragmatic. And all of this regardless of the fact that I think the holocaust ultimately means nothing to the cosmos... This must be hard for you.

Well, that's arguably because you live in one of the most comfortable countries on the plane, your culture is still deeply infused with religious moral sense, your needs are met, and you have the means to get what you want without having to use violence. But tell the suffering masses that there is no God, no absolute morality, and you open the floodgates to pragmatic morality.

[Josh]

As to whether Marxism is compatible with Christianity, I'd like to cite a Marxist website, which emphatically claims that Marxism is directly linked with philosophical materialism:

www.marxist.com/marxism-religion-liberation-theology220701.htm

Read the article and you will begin to understand the incredible and unreconcilable gulf between Marxism and religious belief.

[Midnight Romance]

@mo: So you're saying Christianity and Marxism are compatible and yet Marxism taught that revolution meant that religion would disappear? No, I would say that doesn't equal compatibility. I'm sorry. Christianity would never teach that religion should disappear.

Karl Marx spent a lot of time talking about what was wrong with society. The upper class were selfish and hoarding everything away from the lower class and that the lower class are being placated by religion into accepting it. Then he ended on the note that the only way to change these wrongs to society was violence and revolution. To apply that ONLY to the non-religious aspect of it, when hardly anyone has ever taken it that way, is just you trying to feel better about it. It may not have been the primary concern, but it was a huge concern for them. They wanted to overthrow anything that was oppressing them and religion was on the list of those things doing that.

I would also like to point out how you could use that exact same logic about the Crusades.

You're being shallow by saying that the Crusades were just fought over religion. They weren't. That was just added to the fervor of it.

I don't know if you understand what was going on in the world at the time, but it wasn't happiness and peace until the Christians started fighting. It was actually the opposite.

The Arabs who happened to all be Muslim at the time were taking over Christian nation after Christian nation and forcing their religion on everyone. This is why the middle east is Muslim today, that was the extent of where they got to.

The equivalent of what happened then is the equivalent of if the Western half of the United States got taken over by a Muslim country. The Western half of the U.S. has less history to it and doesn't have the capital in it., but it would still be a big deal if that happened to us.

In the same way, the eastern half of the Roman Empire was lost, but it did not have the capitol of Rome in it or the history that the Western half did. It hadn't been around as long, but it was still a huge loss and an obvious threat as Arabs took over nation after nation that they were going for the whole world.

Up until that point, Rome had not united and done anything together. Each individual place had fought against the Arabs on their own. It's like each individual state in the United States fighting to protect itself from an invasion by themselves.

Christianity was a common thing they all believed in back in those days so to use it to unite them was actually a great idea. It just all blew up in their faces because they took it too far. At the same time, though, if they hadn't, you'd be run by a Muslim government right now.

I think you would agree even from an atheist standpoint that if they had done nothing it would have been a horrible idea. The reason the Arabs had been so successful up until that point was because they were very skilled fighters. They used techniques that had never been done or seen before and because of this what was left of the Roman Empire had to band together and fight against them if they wanted any chance of winning.

They just wanted to take it all back, too, and take over Jerusalem as well. They wanted to make their own Christian Nation (which nowhere in the Bible does it say to do that) and conquer the world, even though the Bible clearly says that the person who is going to conquer the world will be the anti-christ. It goes very far against Christianity.

It wasn't a simple black and white situation like you are making it out to be.

My point is . . . .

You're missing the point. Neither marxism nor stalinism are the inevitable or even logical consequences of atheism.

Same with the Crusades and Christianity, so don't have a double standard and say otherwise. The Crusades are not the inevitable or even logical consequence of Christianity. I was just pointing out the double standard and also subtly trying to make the point that it doesn't matter who in what religion killed the most people because it doesn't. It's not a competition that will prove which religion is right. I'd rather actually look at what atheism believes and what Christianity believes and decide that way. Trust me, I won't throw atheism/agnosticism or anything out the window even if it turns out to be the belief that killed the most people because that's not the important thing to me.

Also, I would argue about whether the people who approved of Hitler and voted him in were actually Christians while following him. They may have been before, but does it matter what religion you used to be or what religion you end up as? I would say they were all being converted by him into Nazism. Nazism would be it's own religion because it's a set of practices and beliefs that they were following.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism

Nazism, officially National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers to the ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs

Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs have been a matter of dispute, in part because of apparently inconsistent statements made by and attributed to him. The relationship between Nazism and religion was complex and shifting over the period of the Nazi Party's existence and during its years in power.

And so were their beliefs confusing because they followed what they taught. They followed their own new religion. If I shouldn't contribute what he did to atheism, then you shouldn't contribute what they did to Christianity either, especially seeing that Hitler's beliefs seemed to be a mixture of the two which makes sense because his father was atheist and his mother was catholic.

Thirdly, I find it interesting as a moral relativist that you would even participate in this conversation. Why should it matter to you if atheists or Christians killed the most people or not? It shouldn't because to you war and killing are neither moral or immoral. They are just as good as deciding to live any other lifestyle.

Also, why do you even debate on this board at all? Shouldn't you be happy for us and our beliefs? After all, they are just the same as yours. Just as good. Just as nice. There's nothing wrong with them or illogical about them because there is no logic to morality and religion. It's all the same really, so even posting here for you was completely pointless.

What would even motivate you to do so?

[moritz]

Josh and Midnight Romance,
here you get my XXL reply (5 MS Word pages). I hope you don’t mind that I answered to both of you in one thread, but I want to conclude my participation on that issue so I’ll give you my comments and then you’ll have the last word.

Josh,

Jun 26, 2009 9:51:56 GMT -8 Josh said:

Not necessarily, of course. But I think that the shock of going from a religious worldview of absolute rights and wrongs to an increasingly atheistic, relativistic worldview, did create a whole lot of nihilism in which violence seemed much more justified.

First off: nihilism and atheism are not the same game. Secondly: the justification of violence doesn’t require a world without God. The violence committed by religious people throughout history proves that. Again: even if I see a fair chance that nothing really matters in the very end, it doesn’t logically follow that I suddenly want to kill someone. I could do it. But I don’t want to. I don’t feel the desire. And regardless of the fact that I have no intrinsic motivation of killing someone even though I don’t believe in after life consequences, I believe in this-worldly consequences. I can think of very pragmatic and logical reasons of why it isn’t profitable for me to kill someone.

Dostoyevsky is wrong: even if there is no God, we are still here. And we don’t permit everything. And we have sound reasons not to permit everything. Reasons that get along without universal morality.
Humans have developed the ability to be moral. Being “good” makes you a respectable person that guarantees you privileges in your society. Taking God away doesn’t mean the entire moral system breaks down. Are you really telling me, that you actually have the wish to kill someone and the only reason you’re not doing it is because you fear God’s reaction? Are you a killer type, Josh?

Please give up your misconception. Atheism is encouraging no one to become a killer unless one always desired to kill someone and the only reason one didn’t do it was God. I daresay this applies to an insignificant minority. Those who intrinsically feel the urge to kill, kill regardless of what they believe.

Jun 26, 2009 9:51:56 GMT -8 Josh said:

…but for the masses, the loss of the conviction of moral absolutes has been devastating.

The masses… what do you know about the masses? Do you really think the masses sit down and philosophize about the nature of morals? Do you think the masses come to Dostoyevskian conclusions about what they are allowed to do once God is gone? Your statement implies that you don’t have a lot of confidence in the masses, so where does the confidence come from that they even are aware of the differences? The masses are more concerned about what their social environment and peers think of them than about what God thinks of them. Think about it. The sociological thesis is: humans won’t exchange with the Gods if they can get an equivalent reward in an easier way. The affirmation of the peers and the integration into the group are worldly rewards that come before the desire to be integrated into heaven.

There is an entire list of self interests the masses put before God’s will.
Example: Even Christian soldiers are likely to behave like beasts in the heat of war. Why is that? God’s rules are still intact even in times of war. And the soldiers still believe. So how come they rape and torture and kill excessively? The answer is: because the social laws effectively matter more than the Godly laws. When the social order is unhinged, hell can break lose. That’s when people become killers. And to unhinge the social order doesn’t require the loss of faith. If you get the affirmation of your fellow soldiers by humiliating war prisoners holding them naked on a dog leash, that’s what the masses will do, even if that is against God’s will. Do you know the Milgram experiment? I think we talked about it in the past. This experiment shows that the masses will rather overstep the moral boarders than to disobey an authority. Their fear of not living up to the expectations of their environment wins over their understanding of right and wrong, regardless of whether they believe in absolute morals or not.
Bottom line? Belief or disbelief in absolute morals is generally not what is keeping us from killing or encouraging us to kill. It has happened. But there is no general rule. Atheists are not more likely to kill people than believers. The logic that they are because there is no ultimate morality, is simply faulty. On the contrary, I argue that the belief in absolute morals is more encouraging to kill, because people may regard their absolutes as imperatives. From there they only have to be convinced it’s God’s will. I argue that there has been more religiously motivated killing than vice versa. Christians try to distort this by falsely attributing the murders of Hitler and Stalin to atheism.

On to the subject of Marxism, where things are really getting mixed up.

Jun 26, 2009 10:05:07 GMT -8 Josh said:

Agreed that none of these features of marxism are incompatible with Christianity. But you haven't described the whole of Marxism.

Those features I referred to are the core features of Marxism. You originally stated that the idea of class struggles is incompatible with Christianity. This is what I replied to. I tried to show that it’s not true and you now you agreed. But now you are changing your argument and say that atheism, which is strongly embraced by Marxists, is incompatible with Christianity. Well, there’s no argument. Of course it isn’t. Whether or not a believer can be a Marxist or not is a matter of semantics. The only one who could decide this is Karl Marx himself. I don’t see modern Marxists having any authority over the definition of a Marxist. Keep the following in mind: a) Marx wanted the masses to overturn the political system. b) Marx was well aware that the masses were religious. It logically follows that believers were integrated in his movement. Marx thought (wrongly) that his political vision would eventually bring an end to suffering and respectively an end to religion (because the masses wouldn’t need their opium anymore). So the decisive thing is this (I repeat): the parting line of Marxism doesn’t separate between believer and atheist, but between bourgeoisie and proletariat. And the proletariat includes believers. The believer is an integrated part of the plan. Let me quote the neo-marxist homepage you provided:

“We wholeheartedly welcome the participation in the struggle of every progressive person, irrespective of nationality, the colour of their skin, or their religious beliefs. We also welcome the opportunity of a dialogue between Marxists and Christians, Moslems and other groups“

Even though there is a fundamental disagreement about the existence of God, believers of all kinds are welcomed to fight against the supposedly oppressive system of capitalism. Whether you call the catholic fighter against capitalism a Marxist or not is pure semantics. Perhaps it was the rejection of the atheist leanings of Marxism that caused the eastern churches to rebel against the soviet regime. Perhaps this is how believers and church officials became targets. But the original thought that makes Marxism what it is, the perception that a system of oppression (and 19th century capitalism can hardly be described differently) must be overthrown, doesn’t require atheism as inspiration.
When Stalin reopened 20.000 churches, one thing becomes evident: No matter why he did it, whether it was supposed to bring him more support of the masses or whether it was supposed to be a concession to the masses due to growing support against a bigger enemy, Stalin would not have done it if the real enemy was faith and the ultimate socialist cause atheism. Picture Hitler rebuilding 20.000 synagogues… an absurd thought, isn’t it? Hitler didn’t and would never have done such a thing, because the destruction of Jews was one of his primary concerns. The fact that Stalin reopened those churches shows that whatever beef he had with the church, the church was not the real enemy.

So let’s try to draw the bow back to the original question: can the victims of Stalin’s regime be ascribed to atheism? Is the murder of believers the result of the atheist base of the socialist movement? Would Stalin have killed believers and church officials even if they had been supportive to his political agenda, simply because he had to see Marx’s ideal of a world without religion through?

Jun 26, 2009 10:11:58 GMT -8 Josh said:

Stalin and his successors did repeatedly initiate a holocaust against genuine Christians. Just as in China and in Nazi Germany, the only churches that were allowed by the state were neutered puppets of the regime.

The last sentence is the key. Churches that would work for the system would not be persecuted. What does this tell us? It tells us that atheism wasn’t the trigger. Believers were persecuted when they opposed the system because they opposed the system, not because they believed in God. Believers who could somehow reconcile their beliefs with the political agenda of the system had nothing to fear. Had atheism been the aim of the system, no church would have been spared. No puppet church would have been installed to begin with.

Jun 26, 2009 10:11:58 GMT -8 Josh said:

As a person who does not believe in universal morals I can tell you that I don't feel the slightest wish to slaughter anybody. Neither do I want to kill anybody (without slaughter), nor use violence against anybody. Ironically, I find slaughter counterproductive and entirely unpragmatic. And all of this regardless of the fact that I think the holocaust ultimately means nothing to the cosmos... This must be hard for you.

Well, that's arguably because you live in one of the most comfortable countries on the plane, your culture is still deeply infused with religious moral sense, your needs are met, and you have the means to get what you want without having to use violence. But tell the suffering masses that there is no God, no absolute morality, and you open the floodgates to pragmatic morality.

First off: So what? What’s wrong with pragmatic morals? Killing people is only seldom pragmatic. This typical American misconception can be observed in the Middle East. Christian governments of the USA repeatedly thought the most pragmatic way of solving problems in that region was through use of force. But the violence always led to counter violence, the problems have not been solved and the conflict keeps on smoldering. It is your secret how the killing of somebody is pragmatic to begin with. I say it’s myopic and most often counterproductive. Pragmatic is something else.
Secondly: Once the masses suffer even God won’t hold them back. You’re not gonna tell me that a starving Christian won’t fight for his bread.

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Midnight Romance,
to deny the direct religious motivation of the crusades is a blatant distortion of historical facts. Whether the main motive was religion or not religion was successfully instrumentalized for the purposes of warfare. The connection is direct, whereas the connection between atheism and the holocaust is at best indirect.

You can say that the instrumentalization of religion for the purposes of killing and power is against the true meaning of the religion. This of course is merely your interpretation of your religion. Other Christians have different opinions and neither you nor I can say who is right with his interpretation. God could. But he prefers to be silent…
The point is: I’m applying no double standard. If Hitler had argued that all Jews must be killed for the sake of atheism and I would stand here and say that Hitler distorted the concept of atheism, then we would have a double standard. But I’m not saying this. I say Hitler did what he did without even thinking of atheism. He did not instrumentalize the concept of atheism for his purposes. On the contrary, he too used religious motives for means of propaganda by pointing out to his people that Jews were responsible for the killing of Christ. In what way his atheist worldview had anything to do with his political views is totally speculative. I made an effort to point out the logical flaw. National Socialism doesn’t follow from atheism. Neither is national socialism confined to atheists. It is simply wrong to point out that Nazis converted to the gospel of Hitler. He may have seduced them, he may have infected them with ideas that went against the true spirit of their religion, but they didn’t replace anything. They still laid down at night and prayed to the same God. They were believers and Nazism is not a religion. Such a functional definition does not work. Religion is an ideology, but ideology is not necessarily a religion. “Gods are the sine qua non of religion” (Rodney Stark).

So let’s repeat:
The difference between the crusades and WWII is that the motivation behind the former contained direct and explicit religious reasoning while the latter at best contained circumstantial links to atheism.
I agree with you about this much: Just because someone says he acts in the name of God, Atheism, Socialism, Marxism, Capitalism, etc. etc. it doesn’t mean he really does. Ideas and ideologies are never safe of abuse. This means that we all have to be critical towards every ideology.

But let me repeat this: Religion is much likelier to be instrumentalized as an imperative than atheism. Because the premise of religion is that there is a higher will that has to be obeyed no matter what. From there it is only a baby step to daff anyone aside who gets in the way of the absolute authority. But nobody can argue: “you have to do it to fulfil the will of atheism”, because atheism has no will. The widespread logic that once there is no absolute authority nothing matters anymore is faulty because the worldly consequences of one’s actions are real and in most cases very unprofitable if one just does what one wants. Morality can be explained perfectly within the concepts of evolution. Morality doesn’t need a God. And even those who don’t believe in absolute right or wrong follow moral conventions.

Lastly I want to point out that you have a slight misconception about my world view. I’ve touched on that issue in the “Homosexuality thread”. No, I don't think one thing is as good as the other. I think that Christians start with wrong premisses which lead to wrong conclusions and prevent them from solving serious problems. Rather, their wrong premisses keep producing unnecessarry problems. By this, they are making life for many people including myself less agreeable. That's how they have an impact in my life and that's why I have a reason to reject them even if it ultimately doesn't matter.

This concludes my participation in this thread. I think I have said everything that has to be said. Josh and Midnight Romance, unless there is any question you get the last words.

[Josh]

I'm going to have to copy this to a word file so I can work on a response on the plane.

[Josh]

OK, here's my response from my cross-Atlantic odyssey:

First off: nihilism and atheism are not the same game.

I didn’t say they were. But historically speaking, atheism has opened the door for nihilism.

Secondly: the justification of violence doesn’t require a world without God. The violence committed by religious people throughout history proves that.

In a world with God, violence must first be justified, and is, on either solid or faulty precepts. In a world without God, it needn’t be justified at all. At best, justification is optional. That’s a big difference.

Again: even if I see a fair chance that nothing really matters in the very end, it doesn’t logically follow that I suddenly want to kill someone. I could do it. But I don’t want to. I don’t feel the desire.

But that’s just you. What makes it wrong for someone who doesn’t think it’s wrong?

Humans have developed the ability to be moral. Being “good” makes you a respectable person that guarantees you privileges in your society.

Not always. If that’s the point of being good there will be lots of situations in which not being good will be much more beneficial. Humans don’t do good merely for societal privilege.

Taking God away doesn’t mean the entire moral system breaks down.

Doestoevsky’s character was using hyperbole. But he anticipated the wholesale slaughter that Stalinist Communism was able to wreck once ethics were redefined.

Are you really telling me, that you actually have the wish to kill someone and the only reason you’re not doing it is because you fear God’s reaction? Are you a killer type, Josh?

Here we go again with your underestimation of the wickedness of the human heart. I’ll venture to say that there are secret desires in everyone’s heart that we would be profoundly ashamed of if seen in the light of day. And who said anything about not doing something because of fear? What about not doing something because of love???

Please give up your misconception. Atheism is encouraging no one to become a killer unless one always desired to kill someone and the only reason one didn’t do it was God.

Please give up your misconception. You will maintain some semblance of the morality God has put into the hearts of all men even though that morality can’t ultimately be grounded in your godless philosophy.

Those who intrinsically feel the urge to kill, kill regardless of what they believe.

Balderdash. Belief stops millions of people every day from doing what they feel the urge to do- including you.

The masses… what do you know about the masses? Do you really think the masses sit down and philosophize about the nature of morals? Do you think the masses come to Dostoyevskian conclusions about what they are allowed to do once God is gone?

Yes, one must be careful when talking about the masses, huh?

One doesn’t need to sit down and philosophize to make the connection. If one believes in a God who both loving and a righteous judge, then one makes certain choices. If one believes there is no Father figure up above, that changes the consequences of actions, and thus changes the actions. And anyone can understand that.


Okay, I’ll be back with specific responses to your comments on atheism-marxism-christianity.