Ideological violence

We might identify a class of violence we call ideological violence. We can start be identifying overall worldviews. These might be religious, in the case of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, or Hinduism, etc. or these might be materialist, or what have you. Then we might ask how much we care whether other people believe what we do. As humans we like to see people believe what we believe. And here there is a huge amount of variation in how much we would like to see others agree with us. Some Christians are really motivated to see everyone else become a Christian, others care a whole lot less. Some Christians think salvation is at stake, since the only way to be saved is to believe as they do. Others think God's grace can save nonbelievers (see the documents of Vatican II as an example). Atheists are the same way. Some atheists think belief in God is a "mind virus" we've got to cure for the sake of civilization, others have no interest in whether others believe as we do. Usually theism or atheism isn't the whole of what we would like people to believe. I don't know of any believer in God who thinks belief that God exists is necessary and sufficient for salvation. Now, caring a lot over whether other people believe as we do doesn't necessarily mean we will use force to make sure they do. we might decide that it will do more harm than good for our cause. To use violence, we have to think it will work, and that it's appropriate.  Theism and atheism are not answers to the question of the meaning of life, but they are necessary conditions for ideologies that some people think are the answer. Communists for example, thought that religion had to be destroyed so that we could achieve the classless and stateless society. 

There is a road to ideological violence whether or not you believe in a god or not. 

An important difference between Islam and Christianity

I find a great deal to admire in Islam. However, it seems to be essential to Islam that it aspire to be implemented from the top down through government, and that makes it very difficult for Muslims to buy in on the idea that they ought voluntarily to refrain from using government to pursue their goals, if it is indeed possible.

Remember how Islam was founded. Muhammad had been exiled from Mecca, then conquered by force of arms. The Qu'ran is written as a law-book. The idea of separating religion from state does violence to essence of Islam.

How was Christianity founded? Well, if was founded by people who didn't have political power, so the New Testament provides almost nothing about government except "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Now after Constantine, Christians did assume political power, and they did use political power to advance the cause of their religion. So, yes, Christians had the Crusades, the attacks on the Albigensians,  the Spanish Inquisition, the Wars of Religion, and the Salem Witch trials. But after the Wars of Religion and the damage that these things did, Christian leaders started to back away from wanting to implementing their religion through government, and there is nothing in this that contradicts the essence of Christianity. Most of the people responsible for getting church and state separated were Christians, not secularists.

Yes, you can be violent on behalf of Christianity. You can also suppress religion violently. But there is nothing in Christianity that requires you to use violence to uphold Christianity, anymore than there is anything in atheism that requires atheists to use the state to suppress theism.

The "religion leads to violence" idea is based on a profound confusion. ANYTHING can lead to violence. But the idea that non-religious people have "nothing to kill or die for" while religious people do have something to kill or die for, is absurd. Some atheists believe that the progress of civilization depends on whether we "outgrow" religion or not. Why would people who believe that eschew the use of force to accomplish so important a goal, if the opportunity presented itself. OK, it doesn't involve anyone's eternal destiny, but the progress or regression of civilization? Important enough, for at least some, to use ridicule and peer pressure on its behalf.

Loftus on bin Laden

I hesitated somewhat before doing another post on JWL. But these statements strike me as bizarre:

Osama Bin Laden was probably a good man; sincere, devout and God fearing. But all it takes to make good people do evil is religion. Keep that in mind. That is the lesson of his life. He was deluded in the same way as other believers. Some delusions cause more harm than others though, and he caused a great deal of it. The problem is he will never know he was deluded. Neither will any of the rest of them. What a waste of a life.


So all that is needed to make good people do evil is religion? So, is that how we explain Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, and Mahatma Gandhi. Is that why they did so much evil? And how did Stalin manage to do so much harm, since he didn't suffer from and God delusion? 


I realize how crazy Christians sometimes appear to atheists. But this looks to me like out-of-control atheist 
groupthink.


I hope this doesn't touch off a new round of irrelevant Loftus-bashing. 

Sam Harris on Killing People for What they Believe

“Some beliefs are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them”


Sam Harris, The End of Faith, pp.52-53. 


Explain to me once again why RELIGION leads to violence. In the Christian community, these kinds of statements went out with the Wars of Religion.