Matt & Trey targeted

[chippa13 1844]

So your problem isn't really with religion but with crazy people. Stop blaming the tool and start blaming the user.

[furlanitalia 1]

But Chippa, weren't tools invented so people would no longer have to take blame? I mean, look at how much easier it is to just defer it.

[Chadd 916]

Tar, you should read Mere Christianity. I agree some people hide behind their religion to spout terrible things, but without religion we have no basis for morality, and that's a pretty fundamental piece of the puzzle of our existence. And I'm fairly certain most religions wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior (unless you can find some justification of violence in Buddhism for example...I wouldn't hold my breath though).

I don't watch much South Park anymore, but I'm sure they've had their share of death threats.

More people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. Be it the christian crusades or inquisition, the jewish conquest of modern day Israel in biblical times or the various islamic jihads. That also applies to lesser crimes like pedophilia or corruption as well. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear about some abuse by some religious leader.

Good people will do good and right things because they are good people, religion has nothing to do with it.

[starsfan71 9]

More people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. Be it the christian crusades or inquisition, the jewish conquest of modern day Israel in biblical times or the various islamic jihads. That also applies to lesser crimes like pedophilia or corruption as well. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear about some abuse by some religious leader.

Good people will do good and right things because they are good people, religion has nothing to do with it.

Completley true in my opinion. My dad was raised in a non religious environment, he never did drugs, drank only once he got to the legal limit, has had one partner his entire life, and he is extremley dedicated to breast cancer research. Religion doesn't make people good, being raised correctly gives people good morals.

And talking about pedophilia/ minor crimes (If you can call it that) the Catholic priest 2 doors up from me just got caught sexually abusing a member of the church that was in a wheel chair. Turns out he had been taking advantage of her for 8 years.

[tareatingrat 4]

More people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. Be it the christian crusades or inquisition, the jewish conquest of modern day Israel in biblical times or the various islamic jihads. That also applies to lesser crimes like pedophilia or corruption as well. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear about some abuse by some religious leader.

Good people will do good and right things because they are good people, religion has nothing to do with it.

That was my point, well put.

I don't have a problem with religion, but I do have a problem with shitty people.

[Chadd 916]

And talking about pedophilia/ minor crimes (If you can call it that) ...

The "minor crimes" thing was relative to genocide, not that the actions were acceptable.

[starsfan71 9]

That probably came across wrong on my end, I knew that you were comparing them as minor crimes to the genocides that religion has caused. I was just trying to show that even the small things that religion can cause, are still absolutely terrible.

On the flip side though I know a lot of really good people who practice religion and a lot of really bad people who don't. I think it's all about what your parents instill in you and the people you decide to associate with.

[chippa13 1844]

Religion has not caused genocide or any other crimes. It has merely been used as the tool of corrupt leaders. It is no different than Hitler using German nationalism to further his agenda. Religion had nothing to do with the Nazis or with the killing fields in Cambodia or the like. However, it is a nice lightning rod so folks hammer it. Religion isn't the problem, religious leaders.......that is another story.

[rinkrat94 1]

Tar, you should read Mere Christianity. I agree some people hide behind their religion to spout terrible things, but without religion we have no basis for morality, and that's a pretty fundamental piece of the puzzle of our existence. And I'm fairly certain most religions wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior (unless you can find some justification of violence in Buddhism for example...I wouldn't hold my breath though).

I don't watch much South Park anymore, but I'm sure they've had their share of death threats.

You must not have read the bible or just know the bullet points. If you read the bible you will see Christianity condones slavery, sexism, killing all gay people, killing people that work on sundays and many more immoral things.

[Drewhunz 3]

Lest we forget the crusades, Spanish Inquisition, or Armenian genocide.

[chippa13 1844]

Lest we forget the crusades, Spanish Inquisition, or Armenian genocide.

Look deeper into all of those and you'll find power/money as strongly motivating the leaders as religion.

[raganblink 82]

Hmm well. This Blows.

All this proves is that they are right about everyone freaking out if Mohammahd is shown.

Well in all fairness, they planned on all along to 'censor' muhammad with the black bar all along. That was apart of the joke. What they freaked out (by they, Comedy Central) was to bleep up the word everytime, and then the ending which basically was a rant about tolerance and how you should respect your fellow man b/c ur the same person as them just different color or something.

irregardless, this whole situation pretty much sums up my entire argument on why religion is bad and needs to leave. Not just their religion, but christianity & jewdism and hinduism etc. It creates ridiculously strong and extreme beliefs in followers which either allows them an escape goat to do whatever they want, or, do whatever they want to 'please' such said religion. Its just not an islam thing, all religions have their extreme retardedness happen with people killing each other in that religions name or whatever. The message of peace and brotherhood and being a better man is all religion is good for imo. But countless lives have ended shortly because of it, and, if religion was truly a reinterpretation of 'god's' will, then, he wouldn't want this shit to happen (needless deaths, etc).

[chippa13 1844]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if it wasn't religion that leaders used to control and rile up folks to their banner then it would be something else. Getting rid of religion will not get rid of fanatics or corrupt leaders, they'll just find another way.

[raganblink 82]

True. It wouldn't get rid of the truly crazy, however, a fast majority of the things that have happened that have been bad who have claimed religion to be the purpose of such actions, then they wouldn't have happened. Abortion bombings wouldn't happen (99% of the time) as the people that do them are doing it because their religious beliefs say that it is murder and they are protecting the innocent. I have only met a handful of people who think abortion is wrong based on non-religious beliefs. And every story I have read about bombings are because of religion.

Nothing would get rid of all the crazy people, but religion is the #1 cause of such said behavior, and would really really help.

[chippa13 1844]

Again, religion is not the cause but ,as you said earlier, the scapegoat. My religion tells me that abortion is wrong but, guess what, I haven't bombed a clinic and neither have millions upon millions of other Christians. People who do those things would have done something like it sooner or later, with or without religion, it is just a matter of finally getting a trigger for the action.

[rinkrat94 1]

Again, religion is not the cause but ,as you said earlier, the scapegoat. My religion tells me that abortion is wrong but, guess what, I haven't bombed a clinic and neither have millions upon millions of other Christians. People who do those things would have done something like it sooner or later, with or without religion, it is just a matter of finally getting a trigger for the action.

Your religion does not tell you that abortion is wrong, YOU tell you that abortion is wrong. I am sure you think slavery is wrong, despite the fact that christianity condones slavery. I do agree with you that the crazy people would find some other reason to do what they do if they could not use religion. I do believe the world would be a much more tolerant place without religion.

[chippa13 1844]

I don't agree. People intolerant of different religions would most likely just find another reason to hate their neighbor and religious intolerance is only one form, you've got plenty of racial intolerance, sexual orientation intolerance, etc, etc to go around that has nothing to do with religion or religious beliefs.

[raganblink 82]

We agree that religion or whatever isn't THEE reason people do crazy stupid shit, but, from person experience, it just seems religion is the reason they do such said actions, and wouldn't have it if it wasn't for religion. Not all people are like this, but, I would definitely argue that it blows the problem out of proportion if we lived in a non-religious state. A great example is northern europe, the least religious areas in the world, and their quote "crazy shit done by crazy people" is a lot lower. Could this be the culture? Possibly. Could it be because of lack of a religious following? I would argue this, however I know others would dismiss this.

I used to date this girl who was in love with jesus, like, crazy in love with jesus. She talked to him and all this... and she did some really weird things that were specific to a christianity purpose. This is someone who would not have done these things if it wasn't for religion taking control over her life. If we replaced weird things with killing innocent people, she would have been the perfect example of crazy stuff done b/c of religion.

[iceNsteel 0]

More people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other reason. Be it the christian crusades or inquisition, the jewish conquest of modern day Israel in biblical times or the various islamic jihads. That also applies to lesser crimes like pedophilia or corruption as well. Hardly a week goes by where you don't hear about some abuse by some religious leader.

Good people will do good and right things because they are good people, religion has nothing to do with it.

Could you provide some proof for that assertation? We hear it regularly, but given global poplations it's highly unlikely all the religious wars in history could come close to the death tolls of 20th century atheist governments alone.

[raganblink 82]

Well just because a government isn't fighting a religous war doesn't mean they are an atheist state. This is ridiculous to assume this. Italy in WW2 and France etc were very religious, and sicne WW2 was about survival and conquest of land it isn't a religious war, so therefore these states must be atheist. War doesn't have to be a religous or non-religious war for a state to be religious or atheist.

Based solely on religious wars, of which, are said to be 100% based on religion for the reason for war; there have been at least 20 million dead (source: wiki). For non-religous wars in the 20th and 21st century, there have been at least 160 million deaths. But these numbers don't tell the whole story. The Iraq/Afgan war, while not a religous war, was a war resulting from the religious actions of someone else. Wasn't for religion we wouldn't be there right now, nor would 9/11 happened. There are hundreds of more examples of wars like this, however yes, the biggies were not religious.

These are totally biased facts if you leave it at that. As most (80%+) of wars were based on and designed for the spreading of a religon or the hate of anothers or retaliation of someone else's religious practices. The others that weren't were rebellions (sometimes a result of religious implications set-forth by the new leader) and the gaining of land to gain land (see mongol's). But this is just war... There were countless deaths by intolerance of an individual's beliefs, or, vice versa. Still happens today.

Having said that, the countless deaths by intolerance *should* be stopped there. As this is all BS and self-hate for the other man because of what we believe (religious or not). I don't think Chadd is trying to say that religion is the reason bad shit happens on earth, however, I think he & me are trying to say that it doesn't help the problem, and infact makes the problem worse.

What I can't wait to see (unfortunately not in my life-time) is getting found by another being from our galaxy. That'll be some funny stuff to see, as if this were to happen today, I almost gurantee we'd end up trying to convert them to all of our religions, and they'd be all like, yeah... it isn't real. We haven't had a religion since we were primitive beings who thought we knew everything out there. Pretty big wake up call. This is ofcourse assuming they aren't here to convert us, or, kill us off to take our land (ala US colonists to native americans).

But anyways, I don't think we're going to be able to convert each other on this subject, as those who are true believers wont be able to come to the terms that religion is like pouring gas on the fire, and those who think this is true, wont be able to come to the terms that even without religion, we'd still be as ducked up as we are now, or even more so, and that saying religion is the cause of problems is just a scapegoat.

[Chadd 916]

Could you provide some proof for that assertation? We hear it regularly, but given global poplations it's highly unlikely all the religious wars in history could come close to the death tolls of 20th century atheist governments alone.

Outside of Communist Russia, China, North Korea, etc... there aren't(weren't) many "atheist governments." Unfortunately there aren't any official numbers available until the 1700s or so.

[chippa13 1844]

Based solely on religious wars, of which, are said to be 100% based on religion for the reason for war; there have been at least 20 million dead (source: wiki). For non-religous wars in the 20th and 21st century, there have been at least 160 million deaths. But these numbers don't tell the whole story. The Iraq/Afgan war, while not a religous war, was a war resulting from the religious actions of someone else. Wasn't for religion we wouldn't be there right now, nor would 9/11 happened. There are hundreds of more examples of wars like this, however yes, the biggies were not religious.

These are totally biased facts if you leave it at that. As most (80%+) of wars were based on and designed for the spreading of a religon or the hate of anothers or retaliation of someone else's religious practices. The others that weren't were rebellions (sometimes a result of religious implications set-forth by the new leader) and the gaining of land to gain land (see mongol's). But this is just war... There were countless deaths by intolerance of an individual's beliefs, or, vice versa. Still happens today.

Religion did not cause 9/11 or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and you may want to check your numbers on the 80%+, most wars have their motivations in land, natural resources, spreading influence and exerting control. Religion might be used as a way to rally the troops but the folks in charge are generally motivated by much more secular interests.

[tareatingrat 4]

Religion did not cause 9/11 or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and you may want to check your numbers on the 80%+, most wars have their motivations in land, natural resources, spreading influence and exerting control. Religion might be used as a way to rally the troops but the folks in charge are generally motivated by much more secular interests.

I need to clear something up, because I'm a little lost on what you're saying...

I'm with you on the fact that religion itself isn't the cause of anything itself, but rather people themselves who commit atrocities. However, you also seem to say that religion is the vehicle for these people to spread their hate.

So what is your view on religion itself?

From what I'm getting, you're essentially saying that people with a screw loose will still do the crazy things they do and use religion as an excuse to do it. And if we didn't call it religion, we'd simply have a different name for it and the same shit would be hitting the fan.

Or am I missing the boat completely?

[iceNsteel 0]

Outside of Communist Russia, China, North Korea, etc... there aren't(weren't) many "atheist governments." Unfortunately there aren't any official numbers available until the 1700s or so.

Well let's think about this for a minute:

1.The NSDAP in Germany did in roughly 12-13 million people in the KZ system alone, not to mention that little war they started.

2.The CCCP did in about 20-30 million people in gulags, purges, and general murder and mayham

3.Chair Mao did in about 100 million people in Red China.

4.It's hard to get real numbers on the other athiest communist goverments in southeast Asia, but it's safe say with the sort of infamy Pol Pot carries that more than a few people got ended there too.

5.Lastly we'd have to factor in all the people killed by various communist groups in Latin America.

Given the population of the globe in the past it's highly unlikely that all the wars in history before say 1700, regardless of cause, could come close to touching the death tolls of the atheist regimes of the 20th century. If we limit them to wars fought over religion we'd end up with rather small numbers. Prior to the rise of the two massive monotheistic religions of Christianity and Islam the concept of a religious war would've been largely unknown. Pagans, for most of history, simply didn't interact with eachother like that. The Romans may have forced subjects of the empire to honor Roman gods, but it wasn't because they advocated the Roman gods as "real" and the local gods as false. It was merely a testament of political control of the region, and local pagans largely had no issue with throwing the Roman gods into the mix of their own. If they did it was because they didn't want to be ruled by the Romans, it wasn't about whether the Roman gods were real or not.

Human beings are violent, capable of unspeakable actions. Atheists like Hilter, Stalin, and Mao weren't any less dangerous for not being religious people. Atheism is just man setting himself up as his own god. Whether one believes in the divine or not, it is good for people to believe that we are not the end source of power. Otherwise we become our own gods and men are not good gods.

[Jason Harris 31]

iceNSteel, historians aren't sure of the religious beliefs of some of the more despotic leaders.

Hitler was well known to be a Catholic.

Stalin had studied in the seminary to be a priest, yet denounced Christianity for a while, although contemporaries stated he expressed "a vague idea of a God of nature". Historians believe his policy to create an atheistic state was purely for political reasons; he didn't want the competition for the people's mindshare. However, he reopened the churches after WWII to help the citizens with the rebuilding.

Pol Pot studied at Buddhist and Catholic schools, and contemplated becoming a monk.

There weren't enough quotes from Mao to know his religious beliefs, but we know that he believed religion was an obstacle to his political goals

I think people try to connect the dots that ( a ) Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto; ( b ) Marx appeared to be an atheist who believed society would evolve to not need religion, which he expressed in the Manifesto; and ( c ) some countries in the 20th century claimed to be "Communists"; thus ( d ) all Communist countries are atheistic. The problem with these connections is NONE of the "Communist" regimes were really all that close to Marx's vision of Communism. Basically, most of these regimes bastardized the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" to become a "Dictatorship of the Leader." The point is just because their leaders claimed their countries had become "Communist," it doesn't mean their leaders were atheists.

Still, even all of that is irrelevant to the topic. As someone who's been an atheist for 40 years, I can tell you there is no dogma or texts associated with atheism. All it means is we don't believe in any form of a supreme being. I've spoken to a lot of atheists/agnostics over my life and the general consensus is we don't care about others' religious beliefs as long as they don't try to force it upon us.

Even if some of the leaders above were atheists -- and we know that many of them were not -- they did not commit genocide because the victims weren't non-believers. They committed genocide purely for political or historical reasons. That can't be said for the more radical religious adherents. It is estimated that 9 million people were killed during the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition. Al Queda and the Taliban have killed Muslims for not being Muslim enough. Hitler killed 6 million people for being Jewish.