Choosing my religion

Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

Actually, I've been wondering - if we look at any massacre - say of
over 10 people at any given time - have any of the massacres been
perpetrated by athiests?

snort

You've never heard of Pol Pot or Stalin? How about Mao? Hitler talked
religion from time to time, though I don't think he believed in one, but we
can omit him if you like.

I found Pol Pot and Stalin on my own - if you'd read the whole thread,
you would have seen that. And no need to omit Hitler - according to
both his private and public writings, he was quite religious. Raised
Roman Catholic, was an altar boy and all that. Wrote in Mein Kampf
that he thought he was doing the Lord's work by eliminating the Jews
et.al.

I tried to do a search on violent crime and religion, but all I found
were the religions of the victims, rather than the religion (or
lackthereof) of the criminal.

OK, let's allocate one point per person murdered to produce a league table of
ideologies. With the heavy hitters -- Stalin and Mao Zedong -- in fine form,
the Atheists are in with a real chance to win the Torquemada Cup for most
murderous ideology.

Or does it sound just a bit sick to think of the deaths of millions in that
way?

Hmmm... I seem to have hit a nerve here. I apologize.

However, I think we SHOULD look at mass murderers, in ANY light we can,
so that we can prevent it from happening again.

Cathy Weeks

In rec.scouting.issues Cathy Weeks wrote:

: Chookie wrote:
: In article .com,
: "Cathy Weeks" wrote:
:
: Actually, I've been wondering - if we look at any massacre - say of
: over 10 people at any given time - have any of the massacres been
: perpetrated by athiests?
:
: snort
:
: You've never heard of Pol Pot or Stalin? How about Mao? Hitler talked
: religion from time to time, though I don't think he believed in one, but we
: can omit him if you like.

: I found Pol Pot and Stalin on my own - if you'd read the whole thread,
: you would have seen that. And no need to omit Hitler - according to
: both his private and public writings, he was quite religious. Raised
: Roman Catholic, was an altar boy and all that. Wrote in Mein Kampf
: that he thought he was doing the Lord's work by eliminating the Jews
: et.al.

: I tried to do a search on violent crime and religion, but all I found
: were the religions of the victims, rather than the religion (or
: lackthereof) of the criminal.
:
: OK, let's allocate one point per person murdered to produce a league table of
: ideologies. With the heavy hitters -- Stalin and Mao Zedong -- in fine form,
: the Atheists are in with a real chance to win the Torquemada Cup for most
: murderous ideology.
:
: Or does it sound just a bit sick to think of the deaths of millions in that
: way?

: Hmmm... I seem to have hit a nerve here. I apologize.

: However, I think we SHOULD look at mass murderers, in ANY light we can,
: so that we can prevent it from happening again.

Well, I'd have to say, starting from the top down... the top three would
seem to be Athiests...

* China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:People's_Republic_of_China)
"... Although the period after 1969 was less chaotic, the leaders of the
Cultural Revolution proper remained in power and. R.J. Rummel has estimated
that under the Communist Party of China's rule, between the founding of the
PRC and the current day, there were 77 million democide deaths[1] ..."

I'd guess 77 million (even if it's off by 25%) would top the list...

* Soviets (http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html)
"... This would give a total death toll for the main Purge period of just
under ten million people. About 98 percent of the dead (Gendercide Watch's
calculation) were male. ..."

* Cambodia (http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/pol_pot.htm)
"... Cambodia Genocide (Pol Pot) - 1975-1979 - 2,000,000 Deaths ..."


Now... some Athiest websites point to statements from serial killers like
Jeffery Dalmer claiming "See, look what Christians do!". But, Dalmer made
those statements after being arrest... but it sounds like he was turning
to religion to be forgiven from what he did... I didn't find anyplace where
he said his religion made him kill... at least in the end most serial killers
are remorseful, however, I don't think any of the top three were...

--
John Nelson
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In article . com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

OK, let's allocate one point per person murdered to produce a league table
of ideologies. With the heavy hitters -- Stalin and Mao Zedong --
in fine form, the Atheists are in with a real chance to win the Torquemada
Cup for most murderous ideology.

Or does it sound just a bit sick to think of the deaths of millions in that
way?

Hmmm... I seem to have hit a nerve here. I apologize.

You did. I started doing the league table thing and then became disgusted
with myself.

However, I think we SHOULD look at mass murderers, in ANY light we can,
so that we can prevent it from happening again.

It's a combination of opportunity and personality IMHO.The personality will
manufacture motives, unfortunately. Methods are entirely too well-known.
Strong democratic institutions remove a lot of opportunities.

Rampaging mobs can perform mass mudrer as well (think Hutus and Tutsis, or the
pogroms of Eastern Europe) but for vastness of scale you need institutional
arrangements, like a government or denommination, bent to evil.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article .com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

In general, I've found little relationship between whether a person was
moral or not or even a good (ie nice) person and their religious views.

But how do you know what a person's religious views are? And if a person is
"nice", do you mean *congenial* or *upright*? I have met plenty of ordinary
upright people of differing religious views, and some I just don't get on with
due to disparateness of interests etc. OTOH I supposes I haven't encountered
too much gross sin either. I can think of the Christian who committed
adultery while in the process of becoming agnostic, and an agnostic friend
who recently admitted to small-scale 'borrowing' of funds from a community
group. Not much to work from!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

In general, I've found little relationship between whether a person was
moral or not or even a good (ie nice) person and their religious views.

But how do you know what a person's religious views are? And if a person is
"nice", do you mean *congenial* or *upright*?

I meant to separate "moral" from "nice person" (congenienial, friendly,
do you want them for your friend).

The reason for this separation, is that my grandfather, was an athiest,
was VERY moral, and could be a real jerk. I loved him; he was a good
grandfather, but he was definitely stubborn, inflexible, quick to make
judgements etc. Probably not someone I would have chosen to be friends
with.

I've also known many variations of Christian/Jew (not picking on these
religions - just have known very few folks of other relgions)
moral/immoral/nice/not nice. I've not known many athiests (there
aren't that many of us out there) but they seem to fall into the same
categories. And the ones who were "immoral" weren't so much immoral,
rather they were amoral - though they only seemed to profess a belief
in amorality - I never saw them *act* in an immoral manner.

Cathy Weeks

In article . com, Cathy Weeks
says...


Banty wrote:

We and the British killed more white Christian Europeans sharing surnames with
many Americans in carpet bombing a city named Dresden than we did by dropping
one bomb on Shinto and Buddhist Asians in a city named Hiroshima. And with many
many more bombers, flying lower, watching the firestorms take over and taking
more time about it, too.

Actually, I think this is incorrect. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden#World_War_II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima#Atomic_bombing

Cathy Weeks


OK (not sure wiki's the best source, but I coudln't find anything I'd trust
better in a five minute search..). There I see has been recent revisions on the
number killed in Dresden, which may be, as for the civil war numbers, a matter
of defintion (like, does one count refugees who may or may not have been strafed
down...).

Maybe I should stay away from these statements that depend on relative numbers


But still the point stands; these two evens certainly stand on the same scale as
far as numbers, and I contend that the Dresden bombing is more horrific in terms
of the sustained and conscious efforts of many performing it. And aside from
all that, German civilians being more like us (I'm partly of fairly recent
German extraction; among those performing the bombing were those of even more
recent German extraction) did NOT make them less a target for our most horrific
destruction.

Banty


--

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5222154.stm

In article . com, Cathy Weeks
says...


Chookie wrote:
In article .com,
"Cathy Weeks" wrote:

Actually, I've been wondering - if we look at any massacre - say of
over 10 people at any given time - have any of the massacres been
perpetrated by athiests?

snort

You've never heard of Pol Pot or Stalin? How about Mao? Hitler talked
religion from time to time, though I don't think he believed in one, but we
can omit him if you like.

I found Pol Pot and Stalin on my own - if you'd read the whole thread,
you would have seen that. And no need to omit Hitler - according to
both his private and public writings, he was quite religious. Raised
Roman Catholic, was an altar boy and all that. Wrote in Mein Kampf
that he thought he was doing the Lord's work by eliminating the Jews
et.al.

I tried to do a search on violent crime and religion, but all I found
were the religions of the victims, rather than the religion (or
lackthereof) of the criminal.

OK, let's allocate one point per person murdered to produce a league table of
ideologies. With the heavy hitters -- Stalin and Mao Zedong -- in fine form,
the Atheists are in with a real chance to win the Torquemada Cup for most
murderous ideology.

Or does it sound just a bit sick to think of the deaths of millions in that
way?

Hmmm... I seem to have hit a nerve here. I apologize.



Well, gee, I just hate apologies which say "I'm sorry but..", and I think I
should put in that category apologies which say things along the line of "I'm so
very sorry that I accidentally steppped on YOUR peculiar sensitivities...."

*I'm* thoroughly agnostic and am pretty skpetical and sometimes myself
disguisted by religion in general. There's no raw pro-religious nerve sticking
out of my being for Usenetters to accidentally tweak.

But your statement *did* pretty much say one particular broad category of human
beings can be held to be more responsible for mass violence than others, which
should be held to question by its very nature, and a little reflection on
history should kill it right after conception.

Not that I'm saying you're an evul meenie for having said it - it's a very
very common truism that's thrown out there a lot. (In this case, with someone
else tossing in the "we do thems that's most different from us" little nugget of
truthiness). You just need to think a bit before tossing these on to others.

Banty


--

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5222154.stm

In article , Lee says...

Banty said:

In article , Lee says...

Banty said:

In article , Lee says...

Banty said:

In article .com, Cathy Weeks
says...


Banty wrote:

Stalin's purges, the Cultural Revolution - yes, I think we can say religion is
not the only motive for these insane passions of control.

Although I am very concerned that religions are motivating expectations of power
and future events which is propelling the violence of our day. And it may be
catastrophic.

Thanks. After I posted this, I found at least two major massacres
perpetrated by athiests - Stalin's purges was one, and Pol Pot's in
Cambodia was another.

shrug Throughout history, most were not done by athiests, however.
Like you, I suspect the tendency to massacre has MANY causes, and
religion is only one of them.

Sad...

I think in most cases, religion is pointed to, but it's really just one of any
sort of cultural or traditional distinguishing feature of the groups in
conflict.


It's a lot easier to wage war on people who aren't like us,
so incompatible cultures is a near pre-requisite for war.

Not true.

We wage war with those with whom we have a clash in *interests*. Which is most
often our neighbors. Who are most likely of all possibilities to be most like
ourselves.

We have all kinds of rationalizations which take care of the demonization
aspect, religion being a fairly handy (but not necessary) one.


People whose cultures are so completely different as to not
even accept What We Know To Be True are easily dehumanized.



Pop quiz: The bloodiest, most violent war fought by Americans is ________.
It is left as an exercise to the reader how this relates to this theory that war
is waged between very different cultures.

One counter-example in the history of warfare isn't very compelling.
And that's not even bothering to dispute whether or not Northern and
Souther cultures were (or are) very different.

The difference in interests is the cause behind the war, but
the difference in cultures is an important catalyst.



Way too simplistic (and dangerous and smug to believe.)

We and the British killed more white Christian Europeans sharing surnames with
many Americans in carpet bombing a city named Dresden than we did by dropping
one bomb on Shinto and Buddhist Asians in a city named Hiroshima.

I think our biggest disagreement must be with what qualifies as
cultural differences. In my view, the culture in Nazi Germany
(particularly as portrayed in the US) was significantly different
from the culture here in the US, despite the fact that some Americans
have German names.



Cultural differences need only be barely enough to distinguish. Like what
"colors" are worn and what's tattoed on one's neck.

Banty


--

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5222154.stm

Banty wrote:

Not that I'm saying you're an evul meenie for having said it - it's a very
very common truism that's thrown out there a lot. (In this case, with someone
else tossing in the "we do thems that's most different from us" little nugget of
truthiness). You just need to think a bit before tossing these on to others.

Well, as a matter of fact, I cringed (at myself) after I posted it,
because I *did* think it was rather thoughtless how I worded it,
especially after I did some quick searches and found Pol Pot and Stalin
right off the bat, and when I found them I cringed and thought "well,
duh." I in fact hoped no one would respond to my post, but when you
did, and did so thoughtfully, I decided to go with it.

I don't have a problem stepping on someone's sensibilities, when I know
and am deliberately doing it (and I try very hard to approach it
politely) - if I feel they are wrong, and maybe I can get them to see
things from a new Point of View.

In this case however, it was an accident, and matter of my being
thoughtless and insensitive, which is a different issue, and that's why
I felt bad.

But (and I know you hate this part) I *do* wish people would not be so
thin-skinned. So, instead of being irritated, and snappish at me
(which only serves to make us both feel bad), I would prefered someone
to have *enlightened* my rather ignorant question.

But, that is remarkably difficult - I not very good at it myself as a
matter of fact. My stepkiddo gets mouthy with me, it's hard to remain
calm and thoughtful - and I fail to do so a bit more often than I'd
like.

Cathy Weeks

Lee wrote:

I think our biggest disagreement must be with what qualifies as
cultural differences. In my view, the culture in Nazi Germany
(particularly as portrayed in the US) was significantly different
from the culture here in the US, despite the fact that some Americans
have German names.

I guess I'm unsure why you consider the US and German WWII culture that
different. What were the differences? I think our culture has been
similar to the German one for a long, long time. And much closer
together, certainly, than Western European culture (of which I consider
the US an offshoot), and Asian.

The US flew a single plane called the Enola Gay over Hiroshima (the
grandson of one of the crew of the Enola Gay was one of my students
when I was student teaching!), and dropped a single bomb, whereas the
Allies firebombed dresden over the course of two days - it took a LOT
more effort to do it, and we were *willing* to go to that effort. And
I believe, it was primarily the British RAF who did most of the Dresden
bombing, and I think the Brits and the Germans are likely even more
alike than the Germans and Americans (not just physical differences,
but the US was already more diluted by other influences).

Cathy Weeks