Another post redate.
This is the sort of thing I was getting at when I mentioned the preposterous social claims made by people like Dawkins. Here Michael Shermer, that dedicated Christian apologist, makes just the same point I was making. Anyone care to argue that Shermer is wrong to wince at Dawkins?
From his review of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion (HT: Peter Williams).
'As I read the book, I found myself wincing at Dawkins's references to religious people as "faith-heads," as being less intelligent, poor at reasoning, or even deluded, and to religious moderates as enablers of terrorism. I shudder because I have religious friends and colleagues who do not fit these descriptors, and I empathize at the pain such pejorative appellations cause them. In addition, I am not convinced by Dawkins's argument that without religion there would be "no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as 'Christ-killers,' no Northern Ireland 'troubles'…." In my opinion, many of these events—and others often attributed solely to religion by atheists—were less religiously motivated than politically driven, or at the very least involved religion in the service of political hegemony.'
And when Christians bring up the crimes of communists in Russia, this is the answer we get from atheists. It's the marriage of religion or atheism to political power, and the temptation to use the power of Caesar to advance the cause of one's belief of unbelief that is the root of this kind of evil. Whether it comes from religion are irreligion is a neutral factor.
20 comments:
just in the 20th Century, the magnitude of murder by the non-religious is of a magnitute of 10 or 50 or 100 times those of religious murders. #1 Mao, #2 Stalin #3 Hitler #4 hard to say, but maybe Pol Pot. Is communism a religion? Is Faschism? How about the connection between bad evolutionary thought and/or Eugenics and all of those named? The social consequences were the things that drove Wm J. Bryan to oppose "evolution", not as the record would show, the science as the pseudo-social science. but our Kids are raised with Lenin's "Imagine" as a theme song and "Inherit the Wind" for history.
Lennon, not Lenin, wrote Imagine. Was that a Freudian slip?
Vic, could you post a link to Shermer's piece, or if it's not online, say what magazine it's from? I'd like to read it in full.
The review is from Science Magazine; Science 26 January 2007> It's only accessible to subscribers online.
The Dude: It's like Lenin said, "you find the person that benefits", and... er...
Donny: "I am the walrus"
One difference is that there is no Bible of atheism which contains statements calling for killing those who disagree (nor in fact any Bible of atheism at all), yet there are such statements in both the Bible and the Koran. Such statements are implicitly if not explicitly disavowed by liberal believers, yet the statements remain, to be endorsed by the current and future fundamentalists who act upon them.
I can't speak for the Koran but those who would justify such things from the Bible are not fundamentalist Christians but idiots. They have no concept of the context of such passages.
Is there anything like an argument to be made, based on Scripture, that Christians ought to kill their ideological opponents. One that is more than just a proof text, but has some hermeneutical teeth to it?
I'm interested in who exactly speaks for Christians so that I might know. Does anyone?
It is well known that the theocracy of the Pentateuch entailed orders from God to kill groups of people as part of his plan for the Jewish people. These instances were not, as far as I understand them, general and open-ended licenses for God's people to "kill when they feel like it," or to, "take out people that I don't like as a rule." Each God-breathed instance was indeed only justified by God's command at that time. None of the
Other than that, I have seen the Parable of the Ten Minas in Luke 19 argued to support Jesus commanding his disciples to kill his enemies. I don't buy it though, it was a parable and I don't know any instances where Christians have used the passage to justify killing.
As far as I know, Jesus' primary maxim usually reads, "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you..."
Bravo, Mike Shermer!
Does anyone know if a Lowder/Craig debate exists? I hear that Lowder cat is top notch... but is he top notch enough to handle Bill Craig? What say ya'l? I'm interested in the debate if it exists =)
Michael Shermer, author of Smart People Believe Weird Things
says that religious people are smart.
Victor takes that as a compliment ?!
Craig is not going to debate Lowder any time soon....
Here is William Lane Craig on killing children and babies ....
''Moreover, if we believe, as I do, that God’s grace is extended to those who die in infancy or as small children, the death of these children was actually their salvation. We are so wedded to an earthly, naturalistic perspective that we forget that those who die are happy to quit this earth for heaven’s incomparable joy. Therefore, God does these children no wrong in taking their lives.'
Dawkins calls this 'deluded'
Who is the deluded one here - Dawkins or somebody with 2 doctorates?
Who cares what Dawkins (nature) believes? His twitch is a little slow these days.
Sorry, I missed the contextual link: did the quote from WLC (on the death of young children) provide solid hermeneutical support for the notion that Christians should kill their ideological enemies? Or was Stev^H^H^H^HAnonymous just being a semi-random flamebait again?
Prop: I'm pretty sure there's a commentary sheet (distinct from the summary report) done by Lowder somewhere on the famous KPvsWLC debate from back in 1998. At least, I remember someone thinking I was working from his commentary sheet instead of the summary, when I called the debate in favor of KP by a solid edge. (Until then I'd never even heard of Jeff having done a commentary on it, just the summary report. Got called a lackey of Jeff Lowder for that--highly amusing. {g})
Jim might know where Jeff's commentary article is. (I would suppose it's in the SecWeb files somewhere. Victor reposts the debate summary every semester or so on this journal--come to think of it, he'll probably be doing it again pretty soon now.)
Jim, actually there are 'bibles for atheists', but most Western atheists don't read them. I wonder what the various propaganda exhortations taught in communist countries say about killing off ideological enemies...? (Stalin used to be pretty clear about what Lenin meant by that.) Anyway, there's atheists and there's atheists, just like there's theists and there's theists (and even Christians and Christians. As J'oftus pointed out, there are few if any 'Christians' who speak for 'Christians' as a broadly inclusive group.)
In any case, as bad as religiously motivated oppression can be, I think it's naive to suppose that if everyone would just believe that reality and our constituent behaviors were at bottom fundementally non-rational and amoral, people would decide to be a lot more rational and moral. {s} If atheism is the truth, it's a highly inconvenient truth even to atheists.
JRP
Pratt has missed the point.
Dawkins calls Christians deluded faith-heads because they believe the word of God.
William Lane Craig is not a deluded faith-head. He has 2 doctorates.
Somebody with 2 doctorates can easily show Dawkins wrong by providing solid hermenuetics why the word of God is to be believed.
Dawkins against Craig? No wonder Dawkins refused to debate Craig.
Yeah but to Dawkins at least one of those doctorates doesn't count because Theology is a 'non-subject'. I also have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn't think much of philosophy either, but is prepared to indulge it because he has some philosphers on his side.
{{Somebody with 2 doctorates can easily show Dawkins wrong by providing solid hermenuetics why the word of God is to be believed.}}
Maybe, maybe not; but the example given by the previous Anon (I can't tell from your total lack of identification if you're the same 'Anon') has nothing to do with WLC providing solid hermenuetics for why the word of God (by which I suppose you mean scripture) is to be believed, much less anything to do with the question Victor specifically asked about. It's merely a quote from WLC (assuming the quote is genuine--it looks like something he'd say anyway) about a theological position on children dying in childbirth.
"Pratt misses the point" because the point is incoherent with the discussion. Previous-Anon was off stabbing at thin air over there on another strip entirely.
(Speaking as someone who judges fencing and teaches other people how to judge fencing, I'm under no obligation to count 'points' that aren't even relevant to the current 'duel' going on. A commenter who was notorious for showing up and flinging out quasi-pertinent brief remarks in a deeply ironic flamebaiting fashion was 'black-carded' by Victor several months ago for doing precisely that. Possibly you weren't aware of this, most-recent-Anon.)
JRP
Dawkins...who wants evidence for everything...has no evidence for his social claims. The only examples we have of society without religions are very poor ones for an atheist to advance.
I was really not impressed by The God Delusion, or Dawkins approach to the discussion. You have to wade through so much of his supposition and bias, that it becomes annoying after a while.
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