The war on faith.

[madnak]

I hoped I wouldn't have to do this. Probably the wise thing would be to just abandon the thread, but I always have put pride before wisdom. Anything else would be downright un-atheist.

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God is tolerant when the situation warrants tolerance

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According to your opinion? At any rate, this hardly describes tolerance in the general sense of the term.

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The "theme", or one of the main ones, of this thread from the beginning was religion being a proponent of violence. I assumed this meant violence without just cause, otherwise this whole thread is retarded.

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No, I don't think so. Particularly given what you've said about religion. And it's important to say what qualifies as "just cause." You may believe the killing of women and children is just, if their fathers and husbands need to be punished. The fact you believe that is irrelevant. Do you realize that Hitler and Stalin also believe they were justified? Christianity advocates violence very frequently. Less frequently than Islam, perhaps, but it's still one of the most violent religions still practiced. You can debate the justification for that violence all you want, the violence is still there; to me the fact it includes infants is already enough to make it unjustified.

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Of course in the proper circumstances violence is warranted, and I think Jesus/God/Christianity/religion in general would probably advocate it if it was necessary.

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Read up on Buddhism (particularly Tibetan Buddhism and the Chinese occupation of Tibet), among some other Eastern religions. Also you might read Gandhi for an opposing view that's less strictly religious. There are many pacifists in the world, and the idea that I'm being "retarded" because I don't reject them out of hand strikes me as silly (and intolerant).

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I assumed when you spoke about Christianity being a religion of violence, you meant they were being violence WITHOUT just cause. If this isn't want you meant, and you were arguing that Christianity advocated violence in certain cirucmstances, well this debate is pointless and this thread is [censored] stupid.

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I'm arguing that Christianity advocates violence frequently, especially when compared to other religions.

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I really don't think Jesus would have advocated letting the Germans exterminate the Jews without a fight simply because fighting back would be "violent".

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And I really don't think he'd have advocated killing all the German women and males, and taking the girls as slaves.

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I also didn't say "all religions have the same ideals". I said that all major religions are correct, more or less. Meaning that when you get right down to it, the fundamental truths they espouse are equivalent.

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To me "the truths they espouse" are ideals.

I think this is false in general. See Satanism versus Buddhism versus Shinto versus Taoism versus Wicca versus Hindu versus Islam versus Christianity...

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some of their ideals which branch from the "foundation" may vary. But at their core, I believe they all point to some fundamental truth.

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This is what I'm referring to by "ideals."

[madnak]

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Midia was OPPRESSING Israel. When you claim God advocated the "slaughter" of Midia because they were bad, you're leaving out the ENTIRE POINT of why God advocated it.

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I've been talking specifically about the passage with the order to kill the women and children. That's the passage I originally cited, and I've been consistent in referencing only it.

After the Midianites were defeated, the virgin girls were taken as slaves and the rest were killed. The justification often given was that this was to smite the wicked.

[madnak]

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Sure, by today's standards Moses took it too far in a moral sense. But, what he did (given Israel's circumstances) was probably 100% standard in those days.

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Last I checked, "standard" and "just" had two very different meanings.

[madnak]

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I never claimed Moses was perfect.

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Yet you haven't yet admitted he was a villain on the order of Hitler, so your position seems inconsistent.

The fact is, the women were killed. The male children were killed. And the little girls were taken into slavery and forced to be the wives of the Israelites (who proceeded to "enter in unto them").

Are you claiming that these things aren't horrible by your standards? If not, then who is responsible? If not God, and not Moses, who is the terrible villain in this scenario? Who did God punish in his justice? Or is it just "tough luck" for the Midianites?

I'm happy to progress to things God did when we resolve the Midianites. It seems to me like you're saying what happened "wasn't okay" but it also wasn't really bad. If you acknowledge it was bad, then I can bring up issues where God acted independently.

I've already, by the way, mentioned Elisha's youths and the plagues of Egypt.

[Matt R.]

Thanks for the more civil tone. I think we'll just have to disagree on some points.

Just to reply to a couple points: 1) I should have said "most" major religions rather than "all". I admit I wasn't including stuff like Wicca or Satanism when I made that statement. I look at the religions as sort of a philosophical foundation in a spiritual sense. For instance, I think Satanism has it right in the idea that you have to look out for yourself. However, other religions acknowledge that after you have the "self" figured out you branch off to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Although Christianity doesn't say "put yourself first" in the same way that Satanism does, I think Satanism has its merits and you can build off its ideals. BTW, I'm trying to dissociate its name from its ideals... if it really advocates worshipping an evil deity (I don't think it does?) then I'll probably have to backtrack a bit. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] What a said was a bit oversimplified... but I think you get the gist of what I mean -- maybe one religion isn't "complete", but most tend to have their merits.

Maybe Christianity has much more lax requirements for a "just war" than others. You may have me there. In my personal experience though, if you take a war or act of violence and judge whether it is warranted based on the ideals of Christ and Christianity, you will be able to judge "correctly" whether the act is necessary or not. I cannot say anything with confidence about other religions -- but I would *guess* it is similarly true for most of them. This appears to be something that we will disagree on though.

I do have a question for you. You brought up Buddhism. Although I'm very familiar with its basics, I don't know a ton about the thinking of specific sects (if that's the right word for the different philosophies). I take it they are COMPLETELY pacifist, regardless of the circumstances (based on what you said)? In a hypothetical scenario where say, some country got a ahold of a nuke and you could know with 100% certainty that they would use it to wipe out a huge city (or multiple nukes -- wiping out virtually the entire world to drive the point home), would Buddhism not advocate going to war if war was almost certain to stop the nation from being capable of launching the nukes? (This is obviously the most extreme example I could think of... but I can't imagine a Buddhist saying we should allow the nation to do whatever they want).

[madnak]

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I am familiar with the atheist position

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You aren't. You've required sources to believe what I said about things like the Midianites (again, bread and butter for the atheist, about as basic as Noah's flood is for Christians). You also apparently haven't anticipated any of my examples, and you don't seem to be anticipating the examples I'm about to bring up (txag knows, I guarantee it - one thing he's good at is pre-empting us, heading us off at the pass. Because he's argued with atheists often enough he knows our position and how we proceed).

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on Christianity. And the Muslim position, and the Jewish position, and the Buddhist position,

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Are you really?

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and the academic position and maybe even the protestant position. No, I'm not an expert. But I'm familiar. Nice try though.

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Not buying it.

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So, you seem to know a lot about my education. You must AT LEAST know what specific school I went to. I won't insult your intelligence by asking you to confirm the name of the school.... I mean, you HAVE to know right? I mean, if you don't, you DO know that not every school has the exact same education right??

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Every school has a biased education, and the Catholic Church is an organized entity. Is it possible a Catholic school would allow Russell's works or Nietzsche's? I guess it's not impossible, I'll grant you that. Improbable though. There are some Catholic schools where reading Nietzsche is enough to get you punished, and that's a step up from some of the older Catholic schools. They don't have a good rep.

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Also, you seem to know a lot about what I've read on religion outside of Catholic school. In particular, you seem to conclude that I've read nothing. May I ask how you know my reading habits?

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I can make inferences based on where you place your emphasis, how you respond in conversations, and your reactions to the different passages.

You can prove me wrong by citing some atheist philosophers you've read. I guess it's possible you've simply been exposed to more depth than breadth. Prove me wrong.

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The statement that Jesus was somehow an advocate of violence is just complete and utter nonsense. This is true in a Christian, Muslim, Judaic, Hindu, academic, and historical sense.

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Then why have so many said otherwise? Are you aware of the history, for example, of the Crusades and the Inquisition? Were they all "complete loons" back then?

[madnak]

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Oh, the vegetarian thread. You mean the one where Rduke, the guy who is a researcher in evolutionary biology, agreed with me?

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He chided me for being mean. I'm getting back to him on the nutrition thing, right after I'm done here. But I don't take appeals to authority anyhow.

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As for your math teacher, I'm sure if you continually asked him to derive the same [censored] day after day from the definitions from day 1 he would get a little irritated eventually. Especially if you started calling his education into question if you didn't understand something.

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I have the proofs from day 1 available to me, he can work from those. You haven't provided any such context. However, he makes clear in the syllabus that if we're unclear on a concept we should talk to him and he'll explain it from the ground up. But since he explains the reasoning from the start, there's not much need for that. If he started day 1 saying, "well obviously this derivative is x+2 so we know the rate of change isn't like that," then he'd probably end up getting annoyed. And if he said "x=3, therefore y=10. Any questions?" Well, then he'd really be in trouble.

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Killing infants is not okay with my moral code. If that's what your argument boils down to, well then it was nice debating with you.

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God specifically killed Egyptian infants in the plagues of Egypt. Direct action on the part of God. I know if he orders his people to do it, or makes a bear do it, then it doesn't count. So how about that newborn first child of that Egyptian family, that God simply smited to make a point?

[Matt R.]

OK, I looked at Numbers again.

It seemed that Moses and the Israelites believed STRONGLY that the plagues cast upon the Israelites were due to curses put onto them by the Midianites. They also "committed trespass against Yahweh", which I presume means they insulted Yahweh in some way.

Here's the thing -- yes I think it was morally reprehensible to kill the women and children. However, Moses really, truly believed (I presume) that the non-adult male population of Midia was responsible for the curse on his people.

Now, suspend disbelief for an instant -- let's pretend we're in Bible days and everything the Bible says really happened. If the entire population of Midia was responsible for the plagues, then of course Moses had to do something about it. If he let anyone responsible for the curse go -- the Israelites would continue to be cursed.

This is definitely getting borderline ridiculous though. Yes, I agree that the act was atrocious. But if you go back to the mindset of the day, it was almost necessary given the nature of their beliefs. They had no way of knowing their beliefs regarding the nature of plague were incorrect.

Now -- I know you will pin these "beliefs" as evidence that religion is dangerous. However, I'm pretty sure the belief in curses was not restricted to religion [edit]. It was something ingrained in their culture at the time.


So, just to be clear (this post could definitely be interpreted in a way I don't intend to), yes I think Moses's actions were morally atrocious. However, given the nature of his beliefs about how the plague worked, it can be justified -- not to the extent where he was not wrong -- but to the extent where he can be forgiven (and is not like Hitler/Stalin as you said). Further, these beliefs in "curses" did not originate with the religion, but with the culture at the time (i.e. it encompassed more than the religion), so the blame should not lie with Moses's religion.

[madnak]

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Thanks for the more civil tone. I think we'll just have to disagree on some points.

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I'm still being snarky.

Look, I don't mean to be rude. I've just started college for the first time after 8 years of no school, and I'm pretty stressed. This is how I'm taking it all out. And it's really not appropriate, but I'll probably still be kind of snarky.

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Just to reply to a couple points: 1) I should have said "most" major religions rather than "all". I admit I wasn't including stuff like Wicca or Satanism when I made that statement. I look at the religions as sort of a philosophical foundation in a spiritual sense. For instance, I think Satanism has it right in the idea that you have to look out for yourself. However, other religions acknowledge that after you have the "self" figured out you branch off to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Although Christianity doesn't say "put yourself first" in the same way that Satanism does, I think Satanism has its merits and you can build off its ideals. BTW, I'm trying to dissociate its name from its ideals... if it really advocates worshipping an evil deity (I don't think it does?) then I'll probably have to backtrack a bit. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] What a said was a bit oversimplified... but I think you get the gist of what I mean -- maybe one religion isn't "complete", but most tend to have their merits.

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Well, I agree with it in the sense that the ideals of all religions are connected. But I still think religion, including Satanism (by which I mean LaVeyan worship of self, I don't think any true "devil worshippers" have ever been recorded) does more harm than good. Which is, I suppose, something we'll never agree on.

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Maybe Christianity has much more lax requirements for a "just war" than others. You may have me there. In my personal experience though, if you take a war or act of violence and judge whether it is warranted based on the ideals of Christ and Christianity, you will be able to judge "correctly" whether the act is necessary or not. I cannot say anything with confidence about other religions -- but I would *guess* it is similarly true for most of them. This appears to be something that we will disagree on though.

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Yes it is. Have you read Peter666's posts, for instance? Do you consider them consistent with Christianity?

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I do have a question for you. You brought up Buddhism. Although I'm very familiar with its basics, I don't know a ton about the thinking of specific sects (if that's the right word for the different philosophies). I take it they are COMPLETELY pacifist, regardless of the circumstances (based on what you said)?

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Not quite. Gandhi was, but with the Tibetans it was more a case of accepting their fate rather than raging against it.

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In a hypothetical scenario where say, some country got a ahold of a nuke and you could know with 100% certainty that they would use it to wipe out a huge city (or multiple nukes -- wiping out virtually the entire world to drive the point home), would Buddhism not advocate going to war if war was almost certain to stop the nation from being capable of launching the nukes?

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These specific questions really can't be answered. Some Buddhists would say yes, some would say no. The concept of expedient means might apply. And some Buddhists are certainly more violent than others - the Tibetans themselves were once warriors, they probably became peaceful as a result of geographical isolation.

Some would definitely let the nuke go, though. Gandhi said something like "if the lambs went willingly to the slaughter, they would be saved by now." Hell, I've known some nihilists who claimed to be strict pacifists. Who knows if it came down to it.

[madnak]

I agree it wasn't so bad for the time. In fact, "an eye for an eye" was pretty lenient then.

But some people still try to apply those laws in the current time. I think we understand each others' viewpoints enough now that there's no further point here. I think religion does more harm than good, you think it does more good than harm. I think there's evidence to support both positions, but am very firm in my own convictions on the issue.