Crimes committed in the name of religious beliefs still held today

I am currently reading The Portable  Atheist, and a chapter outlining the massive crimes committed in the pretence of witch hunting.  Truly appalling crimes that rival modern genocides. Perhaps we can examine this and other such crimes in close detail but only if the belief that caused them still exists.

Hehe The Potable Atheist atheism is drinkable, I'll give you that.

snowyflake wrote:Hehe The Potable Atheist atheism is drinkable, I'll give you that.

Just caught that. Touch screen phones are truly astonishing things, but take some getting used to in this context.

"The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In the Kingdom of Great Britain, witchcraft ceased to be an act punishable by law with the Witchcraft Act of 1735. In Germany, sorcery remained punishable by law into the late 18th century. Contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from Sub-Saharan Africa, India and Papua New Guinea. Official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon."

There appear no accurate figures for the murders of people the church condemned as witches, but even conservative estimates put it in the tens of thousands.

I don't think I can be the only one who regards religious conviction as a convenient cloak for skulduggery on occasion.

Contemporary society is enlivened by condemnatory reports of bestial behaviour in Syria, whilst television dramatises events during the reign of Henry VIII which included beheading, burning at the stake and routine torture.

It's a matter of current activity conforming to established convention. Which can incidentally make atheism a dangerous luxury in some cultures.

oftenwrong wrote:I don't think I can be the only one who regards religious conviction as a convenient cloak for skulduggery on occasion.

Contemporary society is enlivened by condemnatory reports of bestial behaviour in Syria, whilst television dramatises  events during the reign of Henry VIII which included beheading, burning at the stake and routine torture.

It's a matter of current activity conforming to established convention.  Which can incidentally make atheism a dangerous luxury in some cultures.

Not sure sure how current religious conviction used as a convenient cloak for atrocity is any different today than it was during Henry VIII's time. It's still giving the believer the justification to commit atrocities behind the veil of religious belief. They're doing it in the name of god. Which has to be the stupidest reason for doing anything.

How is atheism a dangerous luxury? And in which culture?

Could not agree more.

To use God or any religion as an excuse for doing anything contrary to what one would call reasonable behaviour stinks to high heaven.

The whole point is, are those who use religion to carry out all the horrible crimes, actually religious or are they just using religion as an excuse?

I personally have no time whatsoever for the established churches.

They have all compromised to keep their congregations, to such an extent, that in many cases the very basic reason for the faith has been compromised.

This has lead to many people feeling religion is not what it should be and they are right.

The actual missing link in all this is Satan.

He is having a field day using the so called religeous causing as much trouble as possible.

Just look at the state of the world.

It brings to mind, I forget who said, I do not know what world war three will be fought with but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.

This will not happen because God is about to step in.

polyglide wrote:C
To use God or any religion as an excuse for doing anything contrary to what one would call reasonable behaviour stinks to high heaven.

The whole point is, are those who use religion to carry out all the horrible crimes, actually religious or are they just using religion as an excuse?
[...]
The actual missing link in all this is Satan.

He is having a field day using the so called religeous causing as much trouble as possible.

Are you now trying to blame Satan for your homophobia?

[Edited, typo: I must get some fingers that know which keys to press]

polyglide wrote:-
This will not happen because God is about to step in.

Really? I understand Paul thought that in about the year 60. In the 1340s, the Black Death was interpreted as a sign that the “end days” had arrived (they had for millions of people). Jehovah’s Witnesses played around with numbers and in 1966 told people that the world would end in 1975. Haven’t others tried to look for signs in Old Moore’s Almanac? In fact there’s a whole catalogue of these expectations of ‘armageddon’:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events

And just like you, they were all wrong!  

How many lunatics have predicted that “the end is nigh” and paced around wearing boards? I’m not sure if this is someone who couldn’t spell or just a chap who thinks that UKIP might be the sign of the apocalypse, for which people such as you have been waiting…..


http://40.media.tumblr.com/d96a428134d40284b2dfa26285ec5fef/tumblr_nfjavuomkv1tikv1ko1_1280.jpg

polyglide wrote:Could not agree more. To use God or any religion as an excuse for doing anything contrary to what one would call reasonable behaviour stinks to high heaven. The whole point is, are those who use religion to carry out all the horrible crimes, actually religious or are they just using religion as an excuse? I personally have no time whatsoever for the established churches. They have all compromised to keep their congregations, to such an extent, that in many cases the very basic reason for the faith has been compromised.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:No true Scotsman is an informal fallacy, an ad hoc attempt to retain an unreasoned assertion.[1] When faced with a counterexample to a universal claim ("no Scotsman would do such a thing"), rather than denying the counterexample or rejecting the original universal claim, this fallacy modifies the subject of the assertion to exclude the specific case or others like it by rhetoric, without reference to any specific objective rule ("no true Scotsman would do such a thing")

This has lead to many people feeling religion is not what it should be and they are right.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:No it hasn't.

NB Please note that tiring of your constant un-evidenced claims I will from now on offer nothing but bare contradiction in response to these, hopefully you'll at least get a taste of how tedious it is to deal with when attempting a debate or discussion.

The actual missing link in all this is Satan.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:No It's not.

He is having a field day using the so called religeous causing as much trouble as possible.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:No he isn't.

Just look at the state of the world.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:Indeed, not one shred of evidence for any supernatural causation, ever.

It brings to mind, I forget who  said, I do not know  what world war three will be fought with but world war four will be fought with sticks and stones.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:Your misquoting Albert Einstein, your point however is a complete mystery, care to elucidate?

This will not happen because God is about to step in.

Dr Sheldon Cooper wrote:No he isn't.

For a self professed expert debater I must say you resort to bare claims, and use well known logical fallacies an awful lot. You're also still using the double line breaks after sentence I see, sigh.

Can I just say Ivan, that Photo just made me spit tea everywhere, . A little sad really that I'm home alone drinking tea at 20:00 on a Friday night, but damn funny nonetheless.

polyglide wrote:Could not agree more.

To use God or any religion as an excuse for doing anything contrary to what one would call reasonable behaviour stinks to high heaven.

You mean like bigotry?

snowyflake wrote:You mean like bigotry?

Good darts, though I believe Norm beat you to this one. I wonder if Polyglide will even bother addressing the point. His line of argument is based on the no true Scotsman fallacy anyway. Perhaps he will blame Satan for his homophobic comments?

Doed it strike anyone else as convenient to simply right off any behaviour that doesn't reflect your own views on christian behaviour as un-christian?

This is a classic use of the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote:

snowyflake wrote:You mean like bigotry?

Good darts, though I believe Norm beat you to this one. I wonder if Polyglide will even bother addressing the point. His line of argument is based on the no true Scotsman fallacy anyway. Perhaps he will blame Satan for his homophobic comments?

The problem with the religious mind is that they blame god or satan for everything that happens in the world instead of manning up and accepting responsibility for their own behaviour like an adult. I'm guessing polyglide is of a certain generation that couldn't accept that homosexuals exist in the population. It was a hidden thing. He doesn't or will not imagine what life is like for homosexuals in an environment that criminalised them. They married and had children but led secret lives with many possibly taking it to their graves but leading unhappy, unfulfilled lives, not loving the people they wanted to love. Not being allowed to by religion and the law.

We are better as a society when we are tolerant of others. Homosexuality is not harmful to society. Indeed, history has shown us that homosexuals have contributed to science, art, music literature in significant ways just as heterosexuals have. Why should they be demonised because they love people of their own sex?

snowyflake wrote:.... history has shown us that homosexuals have contributed to science, art, music literature in significant ways just as heterosexuals have. Why should they be demonised because they love people of their own sex?

PC tends to strew boulders in the path of clear speaking. The word "homosexuals" above could be excised and replaced with "Jews". Such a statement would be equally valid, but from there it's just a small assumption to arrive at the absurdity that all Jews are homosexuals, or that all homosexuals are Jewish.

Maybe we should just replace the word 'homosexuals' with 'people' - then we'll all know just what we're talking about - when you put people into categories you run the risk of losing sight of the fact that, in the first place, they are individual human beings - what they do and how they live will have a lot to do with a multitude of factors that may have nothing at all to do with the arbitrary category some people try to make them fit into

boatlady wrote:Maybe we should just replace the word 'homosexuals' with 'people' - then we'll all know just what we're talking about - when you put people into categories you run the risk of losing sight of the fact that, in the first place, they are individual human beings - what they do and how they live will have a lot to do with a multitude of factors that may have nothing at all to do with the arbitrary category some people try to make them fit into

Ideally yes, but as long as people believe their bigotry and homophobia are not just morally justified but sanctioned by an all powerful deity, then I don't see much hope. Yes intelligent theists recognise that bigotry is immoral, though how they rationalise this against a divine message that is unequivocally bigoted I don't know, but there are also theists that seem almost oblivious to how immoral, and in some cases illegal, their homophobic bigotry is.

We have seen posts on here from a poster who insists he's not homophobic. Though post after post show that he is.

oftenwrong wrote:

snowyflake wrote:.... history has shown us that homosexuals have contributed to science, art, music literature in significant ways just as heterosexuals have. Why should they be demonised because they love people of their own sex?

PC tends to strew boulders in the path of clear speaking.  The word "homosexuals" above could be excised and replaced with "Jews".  Such a statement would be equally valid, but from there it's just a small assumption to arrive at the absurdity that all Jews are homosexuals, or that all homosexuals are Jewish.

The point being it doesn't matter whether they are homosexuals, heterosexuals or homosexual Jews, OW. The point is that a proportion of the population is demonised for no good reason other than it says so in the bible.

PC's got nothing to do with it.

Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote: ....as long as people believe their bigotry and homophobia are not just morally justified but sanctioned by an all powerful deity ....

....established religion will prosper.

oftenwrong wrote:

Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote: ....as long as people believe their bigotry and homophobia are not just morally justified but sanctioned by an all powerful deity ....

....established religion will prosper.

Kind of like belonging to a bullying gang. Unless people stand up to it, nothing changes.

snowyflake wrote:

oftenwrong wrote:

Dr Sheldon Cooper PhD wrote: ....as long as people believe their bigotry and homophobia are not just morally justified but sanctioned by an all powerful deity ....

....established religion will prosper.

Kind of like belonging to a bullying gang. Unless people stand up to it, nothing changes.

Precisely.

Dear All,

God says, no one will know the day nor the hour.

Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

The world has gone mad, no one seems to care about anything other than themselves, children starving, mothers killing their children, child abuse, so called religeous people feeding the flesh of a child to the mother, murder, if there is not one or two a week it is a shock, rather than one a year being a shock previously, illnesses etc; the list is endless and I feel there are realy more important issues than homosexuality but that does not make it normal.

PG, I share your concerns about the current state of the world - many aspects of life are not as we would ideally like to see them - I'm not sure that religion is the answer, and I do wish we could stop talking about whether things are 'normal' - to my mind it is a useless category and arguments about what is or is not 'normal' are part of what is wrong with the world today.

Every one of us is unique, precious and irreplaceable - much more important than whether specific aspects of our behaviour fit the arbitrary and artificial category of 'normal'

polyglide wrote:Dear All,

         God says, no one will know the day nor the hour.

         Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

         The world has gone mad, no one seems to care about anything other than themselves, children starving, mothers killing their children, child abuse, so called religeous people feeding the flesh of a child  to the mother, murder, if there is not one or two a week it is a shock, rather than one a year being a shock previously, illnesses etc; the list is endless and I feel there are realy more important issues than homosexuality but that does not make it normal.      

I share your concerns as well, polyglide, but honestly, the world is a far better place now than it was 100 years ago. We are kinder, more tolerant and less violent than we were at any other time in our history. See Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of our Nature https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5X2-i_poNU . He shows the evidence of how much better we are.

The only reason that it seems worse is that we hear about it. 150 years ago in the middle of the American prairies, the pilgrims didn't find out about Abraham Lincoln's assassination for 4 months. That kind of news whips around the world in a nanosecond now. We can see the atrocities first hand. This is not an indication of a worsening world. It's an indication of a world that knows what is happening in the far reaches of any corner of the world. Yes, there are awful things happening but the good news is that MOST people are good, decent, caring and loving human beings. Most people want the same things you and I want. My family to be safe, to be able to work at a job I like, a roof over our heads and enough food to eat. Most people want these things and not much more. The news shows all the bad things going on and rarely a good story. I think if we just reported much more good news we might see a shift in people's perceptions of things.

Apart from the news, I can watch someone messing up his cat's mental health in Poland. And that's funny.

PS Never mind that Steven Pinker bears an uncanny resemblance to Harpo Marx

for polyglide
Love has no gender

polyglide wrote:Dear All,

         God says, no one will know the day nor the hour.

         Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

         The world has gone mad, no one seems to care about anything other than themselves, children starving, mothers killing their children, child abuse, so called religeous people feeding the flesh of a child  to the mother, murder, if there is not one or two a week it is a shock, rather than one a year being a shock previously, illnesses etc; the list is endless and I feel there are realy more important issues than homosexuality but that does not make it normal.      

What does this have to do with crimes committed by religions based on beliefs still held today? There are two l's in really, and religious has no e in it. One example might be the genocide that the Christian religion waged against "witches".

polyglide wrote:Dear All,

         God says, no one will know the day nor the hour.

         Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

         The world has gone mad, no one seems to care about anything other than themselves, children starving, mothers killing their children, child abuse, so called religeous people feeding the flesh of a child  to the mother, murder, if there is not one or two a week it is a shock, rather than one a year being a shock previously, illnesses etc; the list is endless and I feel there are realy more important issues than homosexuality but that does not make it normal.      

When religious bigots stop discriminating against and persecuting gay people then I'll happily stop discussing it, in the meantime if you want to discuss something else start a thread about it.

polyglide wrote:
Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

How many deaths would that be? I find it hard to believe that more people have died in wars since 1995 than in, say, World War II - at least 50 million and possibly as high as 80 million. If I recall correctly, more people died in the two world wars than in all the other 20th century conflicts put together.

polyglide wrote:
Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

How many deaths would that be? I find it hard to believe that more people have died in wars since 1995 than in, say, World War II - at least 50 million and possibly as high as 80 million. If I recall correctly, more people died in the two world wars than in all the other 20th century conflicts put together.

Norm Deplume wrote:

polyglide wrote:
Just look around the world, in the local newspaper it stated that there have been more deaths through wars during the past two decades than all other wars.

How many deaths would that be? I find it hard to believe that more people have died in wars since 1995 than in, say, World War II - at least 50 million and possibly as high as 80 million. If I recall correctly, more people died in the two world wars than in all the other 20th century conflicts put together.

I've tried to make Polyglide understand that claims made without any attempt to evidence them are worthless. I have repeatedly explained what Hitchen's razor is, and what it says, I've even linked it for him. I've recently warned him that from now on when he makes a bare claim I am simply going to contradict it without any attempt at evidence in the hope he'll see how pointless such claims are, so far there are no indications from his posts that he's taking it on board.

I think we can add slavery to this list, as it is endorsed in religious tomes, and theists the world over have cited those passages in order to justify slavery.

The persecution of gay people of course is a longstanding crime that all three monotheistic religions are guilty of, and again their religious texts have passages that validate such bigotry and prejudice.

Not to mention hypocrisy of course. The evident difficulty of some priesthoods in making a distinction between happiness and gratification.

I was weighing up the child abuse that was endemic in the RCC, as despite the church's complicity in covering the trail of offending priests I'm not aware of any teachings dogma doctrine or scripture that validates or encourages such behaviour.

However as you rightly point out the hypocrisy of claiming to be the sole earthly arbiter of morality whilst committing the most heinous crimes against children is certainly worth considering as a seperate crime from the abuse itself. Such a betrayal speaks volumes about the moral compass of those involved.

Dr Sheldon,
As I have said on numerous occasions, I have no trust or belief in most, if not, all the established churches.

There is not one which upholds all that a Christian Church should.

However, in every walk of life and in every aspect of life, there is and always will be the, evil ones.

This is brought about by many things, in particular greed and selfishness.

If you go by the teaching of Jesus, which includes no advice to kill maim or in any way behave in an unkind manner, then the world would be a better place.

As I have said previously, I do not think the Old Book of the Bible is relevant to today.

I cannot understand all that it entails, just as I do not believe in some accounts of what people of the past are said to have done but that does not mean I do not believe they existed.

Just as I believe in Jesus, it is obvious as the son of God,
I believe in God.

Any crime commited by man is man's fault, the circumstances vary considerably, mn is the only creation that has real choice and he is and always has made many wrong ones.

To blame a religion for the wrong doing of man, is like blaming it on any scapegoat, it is the people who blame religion as an excuse that are wrong and not the religion, although I know there is only one true religion.

polyglide wrote:If you go by the teaching of Jesus, which includes no advice to kill maim or in any way behave in an unkind manner, then the world would be a better place.

Could you cite the teachings of Jesus that advocate prejudice against gay people, as you have made many prejudiced remarks of that kind? Since the passages in the bible purportedly from Jesus tacitly condoned slavery, are you saying that slavery is morally acceptable to you? If not then your claim is demonstrably false. Your claim of course is again an attempt to use the no true Scotsman fallacy, I have explained this logical fallacy to you several times. However here is a link that explains it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

polyglide wrote:If you go by the teaching of Jesus, which includes no advice to kill maim or in any way behave in an unkind manner, then the world would be a better place.

Could you cite the teachings of Jesus that advocate prejudice against gay people, as you have made many prejudiced remarks of that kind? Since the passages in the bible purportedly from Jesus tacitly condoned slavery, are you saying that slavery is morally acceptable to you? If not then your claim is demonstrably false. Your claim of course is again an attempt to use the no true Scotsman fallacy, to arbitrarily deny that those Christians who behave egregiously are in fact not Christians at all. I have explained this logical fallacy to you several times. However here is a link that explains it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

polyglide wrote:As I have said previously, I do not think the Old Book of the Bible is relevant to today.          

Yes you have, and each time I asked you why if this was the case you cited text from the OT that were prejudiced against gay people? You never answered, but perhaps you'd care to now? So Genesis is irrelevant? Why do you defend the nonsense of creationism against scientifically evidenced facts then? You never did say if you're a young earth creationist, I did ask, are you?