Religion and Indoctrination: An introductory Article.

[4p3x]

Religion and Indoctrination: An Introductory Article.
By 4p3x
5/23/2007

I’m writing this article in hopes of bringing parents, who may have never thought of religion as being dangerous to their children’s future, into realizing the horrible effects it has on our children. On that note I want to begin talking about segregation. Why do we separate our children? Would we stop a child from talking with a neighbor child because his or her parents are republican? Would you prevent a child from playing baseball with yours because they don’t share the same ethnic background? Why do we allow this separation with religion? Why do we stand for it? It’s ridiculous to see segregation encouraged in our country. Unfortunately, religious Indoctrination encourages a form of widely accepted bigotry towards one another. This becomes obvious when walking through a metropolitan area and witnessing one child not allowed to play with another because of their parent’s faith; it’s heartbreaking. This scene, painted too often in America, is because of a forever unprovable belief.

Allow me to digress. I use the word belief because theists are unable to prove the existence of their personal God. I have heard theists ask nonbelievers to prove that their God doesn’t exist. That’s a flawed argument. The burden of proof is, in fact, in the hands of theists who make the supernatural claim. It’s not up to the Agnostics or Atheists to provide proof for the nonexistence of God; they didn’t make the claim, theists did. Ergo; the theists must provide the unequivocal, independently verifiable evidence. An example for this would be claiming that you’ve discovered ColdFusion and then asking scientists to disprove your claim, all while refusing to publish the reproducible evidence for your discovery. That’s just not how it works.

Now that that’s clarified let’s return to the subject. Keeping children in segregation does indeed make it difficult for those children to understand other cultures and the world with an open mind. It encourages children to look at other people who don’t share their faith as inferior. When children start to have questions, that religion can’t answer it’s common in America to respond by telling them they just need to have faith. That’s irresponsible and crippling to tell a child. Telling them they have to accept what they’re told by their parents or pastor to go to heaven is wrong. This is bad parenting and cuts off the child’s ability to think critically; not to mention scaring them half to death. Watching politics over the last 8 years is the quintessential danger of children growing up accepting what an authority figure says without question.

Sending your child to a faith based school might suggest your inability to be a responsible parent. No parent wants their child psychologically abused. We especially wouldn’t allow it if prevention was within our power. So why is religious abuse allowed? Many adults are unaware of this damaging effect because they’re subjected to the same abuse. How can we live with ourselves if we knowingly allow psychological abuse to continue traumatizing our children? An outsider would only need a glimpse of the claims of hellfire and rapture to know that what’s taught in the bible is child abuse. The evil written in the bible isn’t taught as fiction either, it’s taught to innocent children everywhere as fact.

I’m amazed when I see violence in video games grabbing headlines. All while ignoring a deeper rooted problem. If we’re tackling the issues of violence in the media, which is in a fictitious world, we should rid ourselves of the obvious much older problem. This problem is of course the violence and psychological torture that’s forced into young malleable minds as fact; taught by religion. The bible has been the basis for many evils now and throughout history. Christianity alone has brought us the crusade and the Salem witch trials. It would be unfair to pick on Christianity alone. Most religions have the same evil, frightening effect.

While pondering the many evils committed in the name of religious faith I’m reminded of a quote from Niccolo Machiavelli

“Men are so simple of mind. And so much dominated by their immediate needs. That a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived” 1
I’ll allow the flow of consciousness to bring one more quote. This time it comes from an author named Robert Greene.

“People have an overwhelming desire to believe in some-thing. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise. Emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform. Ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf in the absence of organized religion and grand causes. Your new belief system will bring you untold power” 2

I applaud such champions as Daniel Dennett, a personal hero of mine, who dares to look under the hood and show how religions do their tricks.3 We should no longer protect religion from scientific and psychological examination. It’s important for us to understand the reasoning behind what drives this dangerous legacy. The ability to put religion under the microscope will, we hope, give us a greater understanding of the radical’s psyche. Understand people’s need to belief in the supernatural is just as interesting.

Faith and religion is obviously the product of where you’re born and what family you’re born into. Of course, if you’re born in the U.S. Chances are high that you’ll be brought up in the Christian faith. However, if you’re born in the Middle East you will probably be raised as a Muslim indoctrinated in their faith. My point is, a child, like ourselves, never had a choice for the direction in which we’re thrown. The frustrating part is each faith passionately believes the faith they happen to subscribe to is the only truth. To them, everyone’s lost or needs to be saved.

I’ve heard the term brainwashing thrown around for some time now. But I would argue that with children it’s not brainwashing at all since a child hasn’t anything in their mind to wash. A child’s mind is a clean slate and at its most fragile stage. Telling a child if they don’t believe in the same supernatural being their parents believe in they won’t go to heaven is wrong. Or telling a child if they’re not baptized they’re sent to a place where they’ll burn and suffer forever and ever is an obvious scare tactic and nothing short child of abuse.

Children, often told about an evil creature named Satan. And they’re told Satan hates them and wants to hurt them. They’re told if they question this God named Yahweh, this all loving God will send them to hell where they’re tortured by demons in never ending fire and pain. This has to be simultaneously confusing and frightening to a child. They were told God loves them? A child may ask, If God loves me more than anything why would he give me to Satan who hates me and wants to torture me forever and ever?

The bizarre stories of the bible seem normal to most of us because we’ve heard them all of our lives. But imagine the following metaphor. Imagine telling a child if they are good Santa will bring gifts. And if they are good he’ll take them to the North Pole to live happily with Santa, their family and all the elves. But if they’re bad, Santa will sneak into their rooms while they’re sleeping and light them on fire. This child abuse isn’t much different from what’s taught from the Christian bible.

I deeply want to understand why people still believe in this supernatural nonsense when there is no scientific evidence to support any of it. I want to understand why just because we can’t answer certain questions by our current understanding of the cosmos and its natural laws people immediately feel the need to plug in the supernatural.

We don’t understand it they say, so it must be supernatural. I hear this cop out a lot when discussing evolution. If the superstitious can’t wrap their minds around it, if they refuse to accept fact or can’t explain it, they can’t stop from shamelessly plugging in the supernatural. The uneducated or religiously indoctrinated immediately jump at the chance to explain it away with superstition. It must be God, or if they can’t explain where a noise came from in the house they say it must be a ghost or spirit, maybe even a goblin.

We often hear people trying to plug in the supernatural for anything they don’t understand. They use stories of an unverifiable creator to try to explain away facts that might disagree with their belief. They openly admit their inability to understand evolution and then they immediately follow up by trying to disprove it. The cure would be for these people to free their minds from the chains of indoctrination and learn about evolution and the facts it provides. Perhaps another way to shed off the shackles of religious indoctrination is to read the bible. Not cherry pick what they want to read or what the pastor tells them to, but read their book in its entirety. I’m convinced once they read passages like Numbers 31:17-18.

“Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” 4
This is just one of many evil ethnic cleansing, innocent child murdering, and “women children” raping examples the bible teaches. I would encourage all readers to do research of their own and take the necessary steps towards saving your mind and your life. And more importantly save your children from this abuse. This is not a book we should be letting our kids get their ethics and values from.

I would hope my audience will be a mixed crowd of Atheists, Agnostics and theists as well as Deists, Polytheists, Buddhists and more. Their thoughts and criticisms may very well disprove my current world view. After all, if I’m wrong I would want this evidence so I can adjust my world view accordingly.

Religious schools are at the roots of this danger. They know that reaching the children and using these scare tactics on them at a young age is their only chance in surviving an enlightened, educated, freethinking world. Religious schools solely exist for the sake of indoctrination first and education a distant second. Their teachings are flawed and unprovable. They fill a child’s mind with poison, teaching nonsense like God knows exactly how many hairs they have on their head and the Universe was created in seven days. It gets even worse when they try to pass these teachings off as science. When, In fact, the evidence contradicts what they teach.

Surprisingly it seems when theists are asked to define God, most have different definitions of God.5 Let me define what I would mean by God. A God to me would be something that deserves worship, and with that said I don’t believe the entity in the bible would deserve worship. So when I say God I’m not referring to Yahweh, Zeus or Elohim.

I agree with Daniel Dennett when he says people have a belief in belief ,3 a Belief for beliefs sake. To teach our children we need to have an understanding of the difference between belief and knowledge and only teach what is knowable and reliable.

There is no empirical evidence for the existence of a monotheistic God. I’ve been asked what I would consider as evidence. I would consider something that was independently verifiable and held to standard scientific trials, that is, double or triple blind studies. I would probably accept the regrowth of a limb on an amputee. But the later would need to be in the presence of many peers so I could be sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

It’s important that you don’t allow you children to fall into this trap of nonthinking. It’s equally important for you to break free. Once you break free you’ll begin to see the world as it is. You’ll see it for all of its beauty and come to realize everything that had to happen so we can be here and have this consciousness. I believe you’ll start living life for today and not depend on some magical place in the sky called heaven. You’ll become ethical and appreciate life and not depend on an afterlife. We only have one knowable chance and we are living that chance now.

It’s possible to drop religion and continue to be a good person. I know that’s asking a lot of people. And for those who refuse to break free may be able to realize that religion is an unneeded bureaucracy between humanity and God. I would like to add that I know I won’t change people’s belief. It’s hard enough to change myself much less other people.

I like to think of us all as metaphorical flashlights. Flashlights set in a dark room asked to find the absence of light. This is a difficult task because everywhere we look our beam of light shines forward at 186,000 miles per second, almost instantly erasing the darkness that was previously there. We go unaware of anything existing outside our beam. We’re unaware of the other rooms that might exist elsewhere. Not to mention the existence outside the house and outward into the universe. It’s my hope that this writing may help a few flashlights start exploring and become of aware of the existence outside their beam. This will finally lead to better thinking.

Some people of faith refuse to let their children learn about the facts of evolution. If they do allow the mention of evolution, it’s to show how they believe evolution is wrong. That’s the wrong way to teach anything. And as one of my favorite philosopher Daniel Dennet puts it “How un-American of them”.5 In our land of freedom and informed choice we should naturally cringe in disgust at the thought of that behavior. In college we surprisingly don’t get the answers we’d hoped for and most often than not, we walk away with more questions.

When hard times come, as they periodically do, I’ve heard theists say God is putting us through trials. But I would argue if God is omniscient he already knows the outcome of these so called trials. So, what’s the point?

With this and future writings I’ll try to save minds by writing about philosophy, science, religion and mathematics, as well as history, literature, music and art. It’s my hope to ignite freethinking for those who will listen. I’ll learn with my readers and look for holes in my own ignorance. All the while, stressing for people not to accept what they’re told simply because an authority figure declares it so. I hope to bring a better understanding of the scientific method and how we go about knowing anything. I want people who naturally reject ghosts and astrology to look at all supernatural beliefs including their religion. I want to stress caution when accepting any claim that’s not supported by evidence or lack scientific trials.

It seems several people grow tired of the atheist vs. theist debate. I want to take another approach and show that neither extreme can be demonstrated through scientific trials. And it’s all right to say, based off the lack of evidence, I don’t know. I want to bring the idea that to be responsible thinking adults we need to understand the difference between belief and knowledge and the later should be the only legacy we give to our children. The truth is important to me and should be to all of us. And the only way I see to know the truth is through Science and Mathematics. We should never distort science with superstition. We may be passed the age of enlightenment and given our current scientific and mathematical understanding we need to critically look at the lessons learned of less enlightened generations. I know many people grow tired of this discussion but I would say what’s more important than understanding life and our place in the cosmos? I’d also like to ask if it this ongoing debate could ever be credible a debate. Shouldn’t debates be pragmatic rather than arbitrary?

In America, Religion in politics has slowed the progress of scientific research. Visa-vie stem cell research. Apropos, stem cell research has given us the ability to combat childhood brain diseases where there were once no treatments available.6

Teaching myth as truth and the supernatural as fact do discourage children to join the rest of the world in discovering our factual origins. At best, to them it provides, given their segregation, an ostensible answer. It gives an answer that robs them of their right to natural discovery and the ability to see the difference between knowledge and belief. We should help guide children to make discoveries on their own. After all, we are stewards and not owners of our children. As Richard Dawkins so elegantly put “Isn't it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about?”7 We should realize how impressionable a child’s mind is and teach them how to think during these first years and not force into them what we want them to think because its tradition. They should learn that a rainbow is caused by refraction of light in raindrops 8 and not that it’s a promise from Yahweh to Moses never to end the world by a flood 4.

Religious indoctrination discourages critical thinking and breeds a form of bigotry. Creating delusions of being better or holding a higher ground. It’s absurd to ask intelligent people to accept claims without any of it being independently verifiable. Faith, to me, is accepting something blindly without a shred of evidence. And evidence is how we go about knowing. One method of knowing is scientific inquiry and it is strongly mathematical and depends on strong observational tools. Religion doesn’t allow any of these trials to take place. Therefore, religion is in imagination and not in what is knowable.

If you were to draw a Venn diagram one circle would be reality and the other circle would be the imagination. Science would be the centerpiece of this diagram. We need to put our concentration in the knowable, discoverable and reliable.

The scientific method is idealized as a cyclic inquiry. This is based on observations, synthesis, hypothesis and predictions that lead to more observations. It’s important for us to understand that many of our most important questions are beyond science. But that doesn’t mean we’re allowed to plug in the supernatural as the answer. The main types of questions I’m interested in are origin questions; these are the scientific questions that explore how natural objects came to be. These types of questions are concerned with understanding the beginning of time and the universe, Earth and life itself. The next closely related questions would be process questions. These ask how nature works. And naturally the next scientific inquiry, commonly labeled as applied questions. These explore an area of science that looks into how we manipulate the natural world. That is, how we manipulate it to our benefit in areas such as medicine and agriculture. All of these questions need to be answered with a sequence of probable events. They need deduced by present-day evidence and reproducible experiments. These types of questions are deeply related. You can’t cure or treat disease without understanding how these diseases work and how they continue to evolve.

One misunderstood part of science is how science itself evolves. Science theories are living documents, adjusted to match new evidence as it comes in. Religion has a hard time with this as it is usually set in stone and resists change regardless of current discoveries.

Surprising to some, science can’t answer a huge percentage of the questions we have. In fact answering old questions often leads to new ones. And there is no doubt in my mind that admitting our ignorance is a step towards filling those holes in our knowledge. There is a wonderful quote that goes well with science. And I first heard this quote mentioned by Professor Hazen at George Mason University, a wonderful professor whom I owe much of my understanding of science to. It’s a quote by John Ruskin that says “To know anything well involves a profound sensation of ignorance." 9

In America we are flooded with Christian dogma, and that discourages many Americans from openly proclaiming themselves Brites.10 But I’d like my voice added to the many others before me in saying it’s all right to say I don’t believe. It’s all right to admit there isn’t enough evidence to prove God. It’s okay even if we are the minority in the United States; I encourage you to speak out and proclaim you’re an agnostic, atheist or positivist. I would encourage atheists and agnostics to run for office. Just like any minority these groups should be included in our government. With politicians in this country seemingly unable to hold a position in office without proclaiming themselves a person of faith needs to end. And the more I think about it I wonder exactly how many politicians believe what they say on matters of religion.

I would encourage theists to take baby steps and to remember that if they were born in Iraq they would be learning the teachings of Muhammad and not Jesus. And the same goes if you were born Greece a little over two thousand years ago, you’d be gazing on a colorful band of light while praying thanks to Iris; Goddess of the rainbow.

Our history, filled with many colorful and perhaps not so colorful gods. Many modern religions based on earlier almost forgotten beliefs play a role in almost every culture in existence today.

It’s only a matter of time, in our increasingly educated world that stories of talking snakes, flying horses, unicorns and men walking on water will soon rest on the shelf next to the great writings of Homer. To quote another of my heroes Richard Dawkins “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." 7

I feel it’s important for humanity to reject all unnatural beliefs. Together usher in a new scientific era at unprecedented speeds. And encourage scientific precociousness in our children to better the lives of our future generations.

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1. N. Machiavelli, Discourses (London,: Routledge & Paul, 1950), 2 v.
2. R. Greene and J. Elffers, The 48 laws of power (New York: Viking, 1998), xxiii, 452 p.
3. D. C. Dennett, Breaking the spell : religion as a natural phenomenon (New York: Viking, 2006), xvi, 448.
4. D. Norton, The new Cambridge paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha : King James version (Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), xxxvi, 1868 p.
5. www.charlierose.com, 'Charlie Rose - Guest Host Bill Moyers with philosopher Daniel Dennett ', (2006).
6. H. Phillips, 'Stem cell trial to combat childhood brain disease', (Newscientist.com, September 2006), The first clinical safety trial of a purified human fetal stem cell product is about to begin in the US for a rare and fatal childhood brain disease. The trial could pave the way for neural stem cell transplants to treat a range of brain and spinal cord disorders.
7. R. Dawkins, The God delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), x, 406.
8. J. M. Pasachoff and A. V. Filippenko, The cosmos : astronomy in the new millennium (Belmont, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole, 2007), 1 v. (various pagings).
9. brainyquote.com, (2007).
10. T. B. Net, 'The Brights' Net', (The Brights' Net, 2007), A bright is a person who has a naturalistic worldview A Bright's worldview is free of supernatural and mystical elements The ethics and actions of a bright are based on a naturalistic worldview

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[enoch]

[Lord Bohemond]

Segregation? Creating delusions?

As for the old testament, genocide was just a practice of the time. And may I remind you of the many genocides carried out by atheists in the 20th century?

It’s only a matter of time, in our increasingly educated world that stories of talking snakes, flying horses, unicorns and men walking on water will soon rest on the shelf next to the great writings of Homer. To quote another of my heroes Richard Dawkins “We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." 7

Unfortunately for this belief, cultures that embrace this dogma quickly die out. Man needs something to believe in. If you don't, life is pointless.

[zerathule]

As for the old testament, genocide was just a practice of the time. And may I remind you of the many genocides carried out by atheists in the 20th century?

Hmm ...
First there is no prescription for Genocide. That means that a genocide done 10000 years ago is still a crime and could be brought to an international court. (theoricaly of course, no one is goign to bring the vatican to court for the ameridian genocide).
And NO it wasnt a common practice, at least not according to my history books.

Second, there are 4 genocide ("certified" or accusations of) that where comited those last hundred years, that is since athéists are not anymore put to a stake.
- The Nazis (on Jews and Roms): they where christians (and heavyly supported by the Vatican).
- The Khmer (on cambodgians from vietnameese and chineese origins) : while supposedly communists, they wherent atheists.
- The turcs (on armenians) : both parties are religious (muslim and christians).
- Rwanda : i dont know much about it since its still not very clear, anyway they are not atheists.

As for the USSR, there was some mass murdering, comited by atheists, but these cannot qualify as genocides as there is a need to specificaly eradicate a people based on religious or ethnical criterias.

Please tell me what i'm missing ?

Unfortunately for this belief, cultures that embrace this dogma quickly die out. Man needs something to believe in. If you don't, life is pointless.

You seem to have informations i dont have. Could you please share them ?
Oh and when you say that man needs something to believe or else life is pointless, is this a fact ? or are you stating your opinion ?
I am atheist, and i enjoy life

For 4p3x
Excellent post !
If i may, i recommand you two books :
- "Traité d'athéologie" by Michel Onfray ISBN 2-246-64801-7
Very well documented, its basically an essay on refuting religions.
- "Pourquoi je suis athé ?" by André Lorulot ISBN 978-2914980104
Its short and fun to read, but the main subject is about religion and kids, or how churches try to "format" the kids mind before it's "too late" ...
Both are written in french, but since they had some success they might have been translated in english.

[Lord Bohemond]

Hmm ...
First there is no prescription for Genocide. That means that a genocide done 10000 years ago is still a crime and could be brought to an international court. (theoricaly of course, no one is goign to bring the vatican to court for the ameridian genocide).

Uhh, no. In civilized legal systems, one cannot be put on trial for carrying out an act before it was illegal.

For example, if smoking was outlawed today, I couldn't be arrested for having a smoke last week.

And NO it wasnt a common practice, at least not according to my history books.

Then your "history books" are wrong. Genocide was carried out all the time by ancient tribal cultures. In fact, modern tribal cultures still try to carry out genocide against each other up to this day.

And really, are we much better? Is killing people with a machete much worse than dropping bombs on them, like we did in WWII?

Second, there are 4 genocide ("certified" or accusations of) that where comited those last hundred years, that is since athéists are not anymore put to a stake.

Could you say that again, with a recognizable sentence structure this time?

- The Nazis (on Jews and Roms): they where christians (and heavyly supported by the Vatican).
- The Khmer (on cambodgians from vietnameese and chineese origins) : while supposedly communists, they wherent atheists.
- The turcs (on armenians) : both parties are religious (muslim and christians).
- Rwanda : i dont know much about it since its still not very clear, anyway they are not atheists.

Uh... there were a lot more than four genocides in the 20th century.

-The Nazis were state worshippers, but sometimes manipulated local religious beliefs to their advantage (Basic definition of fascism.)

-Communism. State worshippers. Not only denied the existence of any deity, but efficiently slaughtered or imprisoned anyone who attempted to worship one.

That's basically the two groups I was thinking of.

You seem to have informations i dont have. Could you please share them ?
Oh and when you say that man needs something to believe or else life is pointless, is this a fact ? or are you stating your opinion ?
I am atheist, and i enjoy life

That is called hedonism. Simply "enjoying" life isn't enough to ensure a culture's survival. The people have to be determined not only to survive, but to make themselves superior to all other cultures. That's how evolution works in human society.

[4p3x]

enoch
Lord Bohemond
zerathule
Farnan
eventhorizen
Kythras
Zenith Darksea
Tomas of Hinckley
eventhorizen
Ibn Rushd

Thanks to everyone who read and commented on my writing!

[zerathule]

Uhh, no. In civilized legal systems, one cannot be put on trial for carrying out an act before it was illegal.

For example, if smoking was outlawed today, I couldn't be arrested for having a smoke last week.

Actualy, for what international "laws" calls "crimes against humanity" (like genocide, colonisation etc...) there is no prescription. The laws where made after the crimes of the WWII but people where convicted for their crimes even if the laws did not exist at the time. Technicaly, a genocide comited 1000 years ago could be put before a court.

Then your "history books" are wrong. Genocide was carried out all the time by ancient tribal cultures. In fact, modern tribal cultures still try to carry out genocide against each other up to this day.

This is in my opinion a statement of opinion
More seriously, hwile i wont deny such possibilities (and i'm even pretty sure there were genocides at those times) we dont have historical evidence, or at least none that i heard from.

And really, are we much better? Is killing people with a machete much worse than dropping bombs on them, like we did in WWII?

I dont think so
But we like to believe so, so why not try and act to better ourselves.

Quote:
Second, there are 4 genocide ("certified" or accusations of) that where comited those last hundred years, that is since athéists are not anymore put to a stake.



Could you say that again, with a recognizable sentence structure this time?

Sorry, my english is limited, but seeing your following answers, it seems you got my point. I meant that 4 genocides where comited in the last hundred years. Atheists are not anymore persecuted since those last hundred years (at least not as they used to be : that is put to a stake and flammed).

Uh... there were a lot more than four genocides in the 20th century.

-The Nazis were state worshippers, but sometimes manipulated local religious beliefs to their advantage (Basic definition of fascism.)

-Communism. State worshippers. Not only denied the existence of any deity, but efficiently slaughtered or imprisoned anyone who attempted to worship one.

That's basically the two groups I was thinking of.

It seems that for quite a lot of people nazis and communists are the same ...
Nazis where officialy supported by the catholic church.
A few Nazis official where even hidden and sent to safe place by the vatican after WWII.
The nazi ideology is not atheist. It does not promote it.
Even if it did i really dont understand what this argument adds to the subject, i dont see the link between Communists and Nazis (even if Staline was a Facist !)

That is called hedonism. Simply "enjoying" life isn't enough to ensure a culture's survival. The people have to be determined not only to survive, but to make themselves superior to all other cultures. That's how evolution works in human society.

Wow you seem to know so much more on human nature than i do.
How can a culture be superior to another ?
I can understand how a culture could be more successfull in some fields than another, but superior ?

[Lord Bohemond]

Actualy, for what international "laws" calls "crimes against humanity" (like genocide, colonisation etc...) there is no prescription. The laws where made after the crimes of the WWII but people where convicted for their crimes even if the laws did not exist at the time. Technicaly, a genocide comited 1000 years ago could be put before a court.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but wasn't the first Geneva Convention before WWII?

This is in my opinion a statement of opinion
More seriously, hwile i wont deny such possibilities (and i'm even pretty sure there were genocides at those times) we dont have historical evidence, or at least none that i heard from.

Then I suggest you read the Old Testament. Genocide was a way of the times.

I dont think so
But we like to believe so, so why not try and act to better ourselves.

What I'm trying to say is that it's the people that cause the trouble, not their religion/nonreligion.

Sorry, my english is limited,

I'm sorry, I should have considered the possibility this isn't your first language. Your English is excellent. I didn't even notice it wasn't your natural language.

but seeing your following answers, it seems you got my point. I meant that 4 genocides where comited in the last hundred years. Atheists are not anymore persecuted since those last hundred years (at least not as they used to be : that is put to a stake and flammed).

To my knowledge, atheists have never been burned to the stake.

And remember, atheists were around and accepted into the Community long before the 20th century. Remember Karl Marx, George Benard Shaw, and the Fabian society?

It seems that for quite a lot of people nazis and communists are the same ...

Not identical, but very similar.

Nazis where officialy supported by the catholic church.

Like I said, fascists manipulate religion to their own advantage.

Actually, Communists did something similar. They attempted to claim that Communism is "scientific" and helps man's evolution.

A few Nazis official where even hidden and sent to safe place by the vatican after WWII.

I haven't heard this. Do you have a link I could take a look at?

The nazi ideology is not atheist. It does not promote it.
Even if it did i really dont understand what this argument adds to the subject, i dont see the link between Communists and Nazis (even if Staline was a Facist !)

One can actually argue that neither Nazism or Communism are strictly atheist. Nazis worship the collective and believe in racial superiority. Communists worship the state.

Wow you seem to know so much more on human nature than i do.
How can a culture be superior to another ?
I can understand how a culture could be more successfull in some fields than another, but superior ?

From an evolutionary perspective, superiority would be superior skill at survival.

But note this isn't necessarily superior military. The Spartans were good fighters, but weren't as adaptable as the Athenians, so their city eventually fell into oblivion (Even though they won the war!)

[enoch]

fanatics do tend to survive and conquer, but fanatically against gods in the name of man would work long enough to figure out the next reason seeped in logic step

[Zenith Darksea]

You know, you don't have to segregate your children from others in order to raise them in a certain religion. I was brought up as a Presbyterian Christian, yet I mixed perfectly freely with others, and I didn't go to a faith school.

The ludicrous argument that religions cause wars has already been debunked many times over. Religions are often used to justify wars, but they are never the cause. Not even the Crusades were caused by religion - they were caused by purely political factors in Near Eastern relations. Besides, even if they did cause wars (which they don't), using this same logic you would also have to ban political freedoms (after all, politics can cause wars) and economic activity (economics are the biggest causes of wars by far).

As for faith being something that you have to be born into, this is also nonsense when you think about it. If that was the case, then Christian evangelism could never have been so successful! Bear in mind that there was a time when there was only a handful of Christians, yet within a couple of hundred years perhaps 10% of the Roman Empire had converted, followed soon after by almost total conversion. Then the Byzantine Empire converted the Slavs, and then all the Russians, to Christianity. At the same time the Khazars all converted to Judaism. The Roman Catholic Church would convert large sections of South America and the far East, while the Orthodox were, and still are, extremely influential in evangelising Alaska and Africa. And then take my own situation - I was raised in the Church of Scotland, yet I (alone of my family) have converted to the Greek Orthodox Church. If people simply followed their parents' religions, then Christianity would never have grown to be the world's majority religion.

[Zenith Darksea]

As for the USSR, there was some mass murdering, comited by atheists, but these cannot qualify as genocides as there is a need to specificaly eradicate a people based on religious or ethnical criterias.

It's true that you can't really say genocide, but 25 million deaths is still the biggest mass murder (excluding perhaps the Chinese atheists' mass murderings) since Genghis Khan's day, and perhaps since even before him. It should be noted that a great number of Communist murders were motivated by an anti-religious ideology, though atheists these days like to try to hide it.

[Denny Crane!]

It's true that you can't really say genocide, but 25 million deaths is still the biggest mass murder (excluding perhaps the Chinese atheists' mass murderings) since Genghis Khan's day, and perhaps since even before him. It should be noted that a great number of Communist murders were motivated by an anti-religious ideology, though atheists these days like to try to hide it.

So religion can't cause wars no way no how, but athiesm can. Well that is interesting, nice to see you don't let bias cloud your judgement.

[zerathule]

Hmm ...
I wont discuss the numbers, but anyway, those murders where in minority motivated by religion.
But if we want to do a morbid contest on who killed the most, lets compare :
The communists killed lets say 50 milion in about a hundred years. with an estimated population in the world at the time of lets say 3 billion that's less than 2%.
The christians killed 99 million out of 100 million ameridian between their arrival and the end of the 16th century, so approx the same timespan. The estimated world pouplation was less than a billion, so that's more than 10%.

The thing is that you imply that atheism is just another belief.
It is not the case.
Atheism is not a religion, belief, philosophy.
It would be like saying that all those that do not believe that aliens come to earth in order to put anal probes in selected humans share the same system f beliefs.

A christian that lives today shares the same beliefs (all most the same at least) as the conquistadore that killed those "pagans in the americas" in the name of church.

About conversion, you're 100% right, but you're forgetting a major point : they where done with the sword
Mass conversion always occured to prevent harm in some way : be it death (like when Charlemagne converted the saxons), or being free (when the muslim conquered, any slave converting to islam was freed).
I'm not talking of shifts in the various christians faith (like from catholic to protestant) but from non christians to christians or to muslims.
At that point people did not realy believe, but the following generations where raised IN the religion, and thus had no chance of rejecting it.

[Sadreddine]

There are three perspectives/levels towards faith, be it in either a positive or negative way: rethoric, dialectic and demonstrative.

This argument is based in rethoric atheism against rethoric theism, with a somewhat sophistical taste on it. Uninteresting, I'd say.

[Tomas of Hinckley]

I take the point that religous belief can be used to inspire people to good works, however the application of power is generally a top down process, the main activity of those in power is to keep and expand their power, and religous belief is a very powerful motivation towards murder and violence when utilised by a powerful figure. I agree that religion does not start wars (as only people can actually "do" anything) but this is the same argument that says guns/nucleur weopons ect. dont kill - people do. Literally true but completely misses the point that killing masses of people would be impossibe (or much more difficult) without them, so i cant accept the argument that organised religeon does not make massacres or wars much easier to start or continue.

[Zenith Darksea]

The christians killed 99 million out of 100 million ameridian between their arrival and the end of the 16th century, so approx the same timespan.

This is a question of motivation. The atheists killed the religious because they were religious, whereas the Spanish and Americans killed the natives of America because they thought that they were in their way, not because they were of a different religion! They did not kill pagans in the name of the Church - the aim, in case you hadn't noticed, was to convert, not kill.

they where done with the sword

What utter rubbish! Not a single one of the conversions I mentioned (except arguably the Spanish in America, but that's a close call) was brought about by the sword.

I think you'll find that the conversions of the Roman Empire and the Slavs (for example) were not forced in any way at all. Who are you to say what people did and didn't believe?

[eventhorizen]

I feel it’s important for humanity to reject all unnatural beliefs and trust in one another.

Trust your fellow man? You are living in as big a dreamworld as those people you write so at length about.

If pushing God is so wrong, so incorrect, so flawed, then what about everything else mankind teaches in this manner? What about life itself? Or as I like to call it, the greatest illusion we ever unknowingly created around ourselves.

If God is so wrong in our daily lives, what about the reasoning and the mentality behind those who did not sign the Kyoto protocol? What about those who earn more than is necessary to raise a familly on?

This world is a scramble of rats swarming over a dying corpse, using words to justify their animalistic actions and behaviour of greed and desire satisfaction, where previously there were no words to be used, and no words required. And we all walk this world alone, regardless of the wall of sounds coming from other people.

Tell me, what makes you think you have the right to judge anyone?

[Zenith Darksea]

Like I said, religion is often a justification - but nothing more (unless you're a Communist, in which case a hatred of religion has often been a cause for killing). However, if you're going to pronounce religion to be a 'bad' thing simply because of that, then I'll ask again - are you going to denounce politics and economics as well? Taken to its logical conclusion, you would end up with a declaration that political and intellectual freedom was a bad thing, and probably the abolition of money and property as well, because they all *cause* trouble.

[zerathule]

This is turning into an atheism vs theism thread, witch wasnt the point at first i think.
Intelectual freedom cannot be achieved if you are raised in any kind of ideology (be it religious or political), this was i guess the OP's point and i totaly agree with it.
If we are to speak about the means employed by churches to convert, and the circumstances in witch they occured, i guess we should make another thread.
Zenith, i dont wont to have an argument on who's the lesser of two evils, as i dont like to sound like "covering up" the mass murder comited by the comunist in the previous century.
It's sad, because the subject (and the style) of the OP is really good.

So lets get back to it (and i'll try to keep soft words)

About the subject of going into religion.
Your argument Zenith is in my opinion not relevant : you went from christian to christian. While there are differences for sure, its not like going from lets say Shintoism to Zoroastrism.
I'll try to get my hands back to a document that was published in the 60's-70's by the vatican that illustrates the OP's point. In substance, it was a directive that instructed the priests to focus their attention on kids because their mind was blank and so more easyly influenced, and once you grow up you usually dont think again about what you where instructed, you just think you're christian or insert_religion and wont have second thoughts.

The problem about religious ideology is that they are not based on facts, but faith.
If you are raised on a system of belief based on facts, adn you are proven that those facts are wrong, you can change your minds : other facts will base your new way of thinking. This is called reason.
You cannot prove, or disprove faith, so there is no way to change one's mind, even with facts and reason.

There was an excellent article in a scientific magazine studying faith from a psychanalistical and neurological point of view.
A study was made on the perception of cause and consequences between theists and atheists.
The study consisted in an interview and a test.
One of the questions was this :
"A bus conducting 50 kids crashes in a deadly accident. If god existed, how could he interfere to save the kids".
The majority of atheists answered that god would just change the mind of the driver so that he takes another passage and thus avoid the accident.
The majority of theist answered that god would have lifted the bus for a few seconds so that it avoids the crash.
This led to the second study :
They made a series of noises and the interviewd had to say what happened (not what they heard). Noises was like a door shuting, a ball bouncing etc...
The goal was not to see if they had earing problems, but to see the response times when faced with a "blind" cause consequence.
The study (while very controversial i must agree) showed (and see i did not say "proved") that theists where less able to recognise causality than atheists.

Why am i saying this ?
When you are thought from childhood that something is the truth its hard to change your mind later on.
I had a really good friend raised in a catholic school. He realy believed in all that they teached him, untill one day he realised that it wasnt possible to have a kid without a biological father, and from that point he realised he was raised in lies.
When he told me about this, (like 15 years after) he was allmost crying, in fact he had allmost the same emotion as abused women talikng about their bad experience.
This is mental abuse, in the same way as denounced by the OP (and by me)

[Kythras]

Wow.... just... wow... everything I want to say, said more clearly, and more eloquently than I could ever say it...

Wow...

+rep for you my friend