Religion is good, Reason, logic, and science are evil.

[Black Wolf]

I'm a little new to advocating free-market capitalism, but I have never been new to advocating atheism. Real atheism.

Since christians love to attack atheism in defense of their religion, I thought I'd do just that.

http://www.traditionalvalues.org/read/2943...-world-history/

As we approach Christmas, the one day a year that we set aside to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, we are hearing noises among intellectuals and rock stars about the “dangers” of Christianity to world peace and cultural tolerance. The most recent attack on organized religion came from homosexual rock star Sir Elton John, who thinks that organized religion—specifically Christianity—turns people into “hateful lemmings.” According to John, “I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.” His solution: “ban religion completely, even though there are some wonderful things about it.”

Atheist Richard Dawkins, writing in his new book, “The God Delusion,” claims that many of the world’s conflicts around the world are due to the murderous religious impulses. Columnist Robert Kuttner claims that “The Crusades slaughtered millions in the name of Jesus. The Inquisition brought the torture and murder of millions more. After Martin Luther, Christians did bloody battle with other Christians for another three centuries.”

Dinesh D’Souza, a Fellow at the Hoover Institution recently pointed out the glaring errors in such statements in the Christian Science Monitor. He noted, for example, that the Spanish Inquisition sentenced to death approximately 10,000 individuals. Some historians claim another 100,000 died in jail.

One of liberalism’s favorite anti-Christian boogeyman is the Salem witch trials. How many actually died as a result of those trials: fewer than 25.

And what of the Crusades? Most Americans probably have a negative view of the Crusades as an attempt by Christians to conquer peaceful Muslims. The opposite is true. British historian Paul Johnson has observed: “The Crusades, far from being an outrageous prototype of Western imperialism, as taught in most schools, were a mere episode in a struggle that lasted 1,400 years, and were one of the few occasions when Christians took the offensive to regain ‘occupied territories’ of the Holy Land.” The Crusades were launched to regain land conquered by Muslims and to prevent Muslim armies from invading and conquering any more nations! It was a defensive war against Muslim imperialism.

The Christian-haters should turn their attentions to militant Islam and Atheism as the most serious dangers to the world.

Militant Islam, I will certainly give you. I never understood why liberals insist on defending a religion that is more hateful in it's language, and more close to Mein Kampf than Christianity. Nevertheless, what you are about to say about Atheism is null and void.

The fact is that while religious wars have been fought for centuries, militant atheism has slaughtered more people than religious zealots ever have. The greatest mass murders in history have been committed not by Christians but by Communists Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse Tung. More than 100 million have died at the hands of these militant atheists since the early 20th century.

So, logically, instead of being concerned about something that has continuously feuled murderes throughout history, we should worry about one single instance in which some bad thing should happen. And instead of acknolwedging the ethical aspects behind these mass murders, altruism and socialism, we'll acknowledge the metaphysical mindset behind the murders. Okay.

The fact is that Christians have been at the forefront of expanding and defending human freedom around the globe ever since the First Century Church was founded. Christians, for example, were the ones who campaigned against the gladiator games in ancient Rome as well as against the slave trade in Britain and in the United States. It has been our Christian compassion that has led us into wars around the world to defend the downtrodden and to preserve freedom for individuals. (Alvin J. Schmidt, Ph.D., clearly explains this in his excellent history book, “How Christianity Changed The World.”)

We'll ignore the several people who are advocating for individual liberties as well, such as Ayn Rand. Might I also add that Ayn Rand, an atheist, was the first person to come up with a way of actually acheiving laissez faire capitalism (Real capitalism, not religiously-butchered capitalism). Whenever a christian has an idea for capitalism, there is always a glaring achilles-heel that can not be ignored:

- State-rights: Another form of mixed capitalism, founded on the idea that government gets to keep it's power while individuals get to keep their freedom. You can't have both. To have a free society, government must be controlled.

- A desire to sacrifice political freedom: Contractual freedom should be maximized... unless a man and another man decide to do it and call it a marital contract. People should be free to do whatever they want... unless they want to prostitute themselves, do drugs. A potential human being is more important than an actual human being.

Elton John’s ability to speak freely and attack Christianity in Britain is due to the fact that Britain has based its laws upon the Ten Commandments and Christian principles about free speech and freedom of conscience.

Huh? What.

John might not fare so well under Sharia law nor would his music be freely marketed under a Communist dictatorship.

Again, you are making the assumption that communism's flaw was it's metaphysics, not it's ethics.

http://www.americanvision.org/article/adam...ers-of-atheism/

I found another very interesting article, that actually says that science and reason are bad things by themselves. I'll get to this later.

[0096 2251 2110 8105]

I don't see the point of this thread. Do you want assistance or have a question?

[Black Wolf]

Part of me wanted to just preach to the choir. Guess that's not a reason to start a new topic alone.

But now that you mention it, I do have a question:

The sciences and arts constantly reassure us (not only in their content, but also in the frequent abuses of their methods, ethics, and the politics of the universities) that human nature is as fallen as ever. In light of this observable fact, Adams argues, the great diffusion of knowledge actually increases the ability of man to intensify his evils: "On the contrary, the more knowledge is diffused, the more the passions are extended, and the more furious they grow. . . . There is no connection in the mind between science and passion, by which the former can extinguish or diminish the latter: it on the contrary sometimes increases them, by giving them exercise.

This is probably the most thought-provoking exaggerated claim I've come across upon reading the article.

Has there been any historical evidence that supports that the desire for knowledge has caused people to become unreasonable? What checks on passion can human nature provide, and how can passion obstruct reason?

[Zip]

Has there been any historical evidence that supports that the desire for knowledge has caused people to become unreasonable? What checks on passion can human nature provide, and how can passion obstruct reason?

Suer there is. When Galileo said that the earth was not the center of the universe some people became unreasonable, when Columbus claimed the world was not flat some people became unreasonable. I'm sure there are many more examples of people acting unreasonably in the face of knowledge.

[Black Wolf]

Suer there is. When Galileo said that the earth was not the center of the universe some people became unreasonable, when Columbus claimed the world was not flat some people became unreasonable. I'm sure there are many more examples of people acting unreasonably in the face of knowledge.

I see, so the problem is not that the person discovering new knowledge becomes unresaonable, but the people he tries to educate. The people who cling to beliefs that differ vastly from the new knowledge are the problem.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Black Wolf

[Zip]

I see, so the problem is not that the person discovering new knowledge becomes unresaonable, but the people he tries to educate. The people who cling to beliefs that differ vastly from the new knowledge are the problem.

The evasion of reality (objective and proven) is always unreasonable.

Edited to add: And that includes plugging your ears and closing your eyes, yelling "Na-na-na-na" and refusing to have knowledge proven to you.

Edited January 8, 2010 by Zip

[Jake_Ellison]

Has there been any historical evidence that supports that the desire for knowledge has caused people to become unreasonable? What checks on passion can human nature provide, and how can passion obstruct reason?

I'm not sure what they could possibly mean by passion, that's a bad thing. As I understand that word, it is only passion for something that we can speak of. Specifically, passion for a value, in the widest sense of the word "value". In that case, there is no need for a check on passion, only for a rational choosing of values. Some of the greatest men have had the greatest passion for their professions or ideals.

I agree with the part that "science (reason in general) doesn't extinguish passion, it feeds it". And I'm glad it does.

[bluecherry]

Suer there is. When Galileo said that the earth was not the center of the universe some people became unreasonable, when Columbus claimed the world was not flat some people became unreasonable. I'm sure there are many more examples of people acting unreasonably in the face of knowledge.

Speaking of all that is revealing true facts in opposition to long held falsehoods, people had long known the world was round, Columbus hadn't been trying to prove that. What he had been trying to prove was that the circumference of the earth was not very great while most people (correctly) believed the distance was much grater than Columbus's idea which was based of wrong ideas by some other guy. Around Columbus's time the issue was just that they were still working on a way to reliably measure longitude, hence the difficulty in telling how far they had to travel if they headed west to get to Aisa. I've had a history teacher in college who greatly emphasized this point, that Columbus was trying to prove the world was narrow, not round, and you can also see it with citation in the wiki article on Columbus here: Columbus

EDIT: Although, "The evasion of reality (objective and proven) is always unreasonable," ALWAYS? I happen to find it rather reasonable for me to avoid finding out objective, proven facts about, say, the explicit details of what my parents may do in the bedroom when I'm not around. ;P

Edited January 8, 2010 by bluecherry

[LogicsSon]

Passion, if I understand it here, represents the will of man which is always opposed to the will of god, and is in battle with gods 'plan' = the fight verse good and evil, the will of god and the will of 'the world'.

[Black Wolf]

I suppose that Adams is arguing that passion will turn people into violent people.

Okay, that's a good point against science WITHOUT reason, if you can logistically prove it. But not with reason.

[Black Wolf]

http://gmliberty.blogspot.com/2004/07/no-s...tarians_06.html

This utter idiot talks about how Atheism and libertarianism are incompatible, and uses Ayn Rand as an example. Ayn Rand of course was not a libertarian, and refuses to acknolwedge herself as such, but the message of course is all the same: Atheism is incompatible with Laissez-faire-capitalism.

Basically, the main idea behind this idiot's passage, is that while Ayn Rand is applying "survival of the fittest" to man, she fails to acknowledge the difference between animals and mankind.

Newsflash: She has stated numerous times the difference between animals and mankind. Animals survive by force, men survive by reason. Damn, Mr. Op-Ed, did you like completely miss the epistemic branch of Objectivism that states that man survives by reason? Because golly, it sure does make sense when Ayn Rand applies "survival of the fittest" to man, when she says that man survives by reason. So.. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that... the fittest man is the most reasonable man?

Damn.

It depresses me so much to see people have so much contempt for themselves that they need a so-called "higher power" to be consistent with freedom. I'm not going to be like this idiot and say that your metaphysical views are contradictory to individual rights, but damn.. how loathesome must you be of yourself the you must zealously defend your altruism toward a non-existant entity?

Edited February 15, 2010 by Black Wolf