This issue of things making not making sense or lacking consistency might crop up from time to time when dealing with religion. Unfortunately for the the religious they no longer get to burn people who ask awkward questions.
Let's separate the apples from the oranges in your statement. Saying that someone will be punished for an action that harms nobody but himself is completely different then saying that someone will be punished if he doesn't kill someone. You have the right to your opinion if you condemn me for sleeping with men, or condemn me for eating meat, or condemn me for driving an SUV. I couldn't care less about what you think of me if I do any of those things. The harm comes when you try to make it illegal for me to do those actions.
Many religious people believe that they are blessed in this life. And, as Saro said, doesn't the belief that you will be able to be again with your departed loved ones serve as a comfort and make their loss easier to handle in this life?
I never argued that they didn't. If religion just stops some people from doing terrible things or if it commands some people to do good things then it serves a purpose.
So would I, but that's not the point I was trying to make. Certainly, I care about the motivations of the people who I consider my friends. I couldn't care less about the motivations of strangers (who make up the majority of people with whom I interact); I only care about their actions.
I believe that there is. The recent track record of atheistic governments (as opposed to secular governments) reveals a high level of inhumane treatment of at least some of the people they govern. How many people died under the regimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.?
This in a society thing rather than an individual not raping someone because they fear punishment, which is a bit of a different topic, but anyway.
Either this is a badly worded strawman, or you haven't a clue what you're talking about. I can't speak for religions other than Judaism and Christianity, but in both of them, you go to hell simply for not following God. It doesn't matter if you're a "good" person or not - you've done something in your life to offend the Almighty.
Which proves what? Slavery was practiced by most civilizations in the past; religious or otherwise. Life for most people centuries ago was short, cruel, and hard, no matter what type of society they lived in. And, as I said earlier, I’m not arguing for a return to theocracies.
Are you seriously arguing that WW I and WW II would have not happened if the European societies, at the time, were less religious and that one of the major reasons we haven’t seen a WW III is due to the fact that religion is losing its power over the people?
What leads you to think that religious people believe that all people in hell experience the same amount of torment? Have you ever read the ‘Divine Comedy’ by Dante Alighieri?
Are you arguing that people like Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot would have been less murderous if they had been religious?
Had they been truly religious, yes; but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Again, a strong religious base tends to act as as an alternative power base. There is a reason that most totalitarian regimes suppress the press, the intelligentsia ,and the Church. It's easier to get away with oppression when there is no opposition from within the Society and you can control the information that gets out to the rest of the world.
No, I just don't think you can compare something that happened in the last century and even in the last 40 years to things that happened over 700 years ago (the crusades). When I was saying that life was hard, short, and cruel for the majority of the people when the things you mentioned happened I was talking about everyone, no matter where they lived and no matter what type of government they lived under. That is not the case in the last 100 years.
It's not like the Vatican and other religious organizations have ever been noted for suppressing free thought or the free flow of information.
Firstly - "Oh but your examples don't count because some people on the other side of the world were not experiencing short, harsh and cruel lives" doesn't seem all that convincing. I don't see how that has much bearing on actions within societies that did experience short, harsh and cruel lives.
I'm not judging the value of life or the people, but pointing out that the lives of many on earth are very very harsh and fate has delt them a cruel hand.
I work on a constuction site in the Middle East. Every day I see about a thousand labourers bussed to the site from a labour camp, where they live ten to a room, to do hard manual labour in the baking heat for 12 hours a day in exchange for about $5/day, half of which is taken back off them by teir employer to pay for food. For the opportunity to do this they have frequently paid bribes of upto $1000 (often borrowed from a loan shark) to recruitment agents in their home countries.
Most religious organization are private ones where its members have the choice of belonging or leaving. Private organization can demand certain actions or forbid certain actions of its members as the 'price' of membership. I have already covered the situation where a religion controls the government (i.e. a theocracy). I'm ag'in it.
Again, you've missed my point. I said that you referred to times when virtually EVERYONE lived short, hard, and cruel lives. I never said or implied that, at the time of Mao or Stalin, only people living in their societies had hard lives.
And again - today the vast majority of the people on the planet still lead short, hard and cruel lives. 50 years ago the situation was the same. Take Mao in China - he came to power following one of the most brutal wars in history, preceded by his nation being run by feudal war lords. For a few thousand miles in any direction almost every person was leading short, harsh and cruel lives. Not al that different from the more religious rulers of days gone by.
So it was OK that these religious people did these horrific things because their religiously motivated morality from the absolute power cannot be expected to get them to treat others with a shred of humanity...
Compared to how people lived in the Middle Ages? I doubt it. According to WikiAnswers, the average life expectancy back then was around 25 years, and that included the people in power such as the nobles. Hell, life expectancy for white males was only 38.3 years in 1850.
Don't put words in my mouth. Again, I have to repeat myself. Religion has never been, is not, nor will it ever be a panacea that will prevent societies from doing 'bad' things. It just that there is strong evidence that a society that goes as far as to suppress religion is a really nasty place to live.
Hell - in Glasgow, Scotland it's still only around 50 years.
But to pick one aspect in a society to blame today, for doing not dissimilar things to previous societies, is perfectly reasonable?
And huge portions of both populations were desperately poor.
I agree that societies that suppress religion tend to be ****ty places to live, but I don't think that is because the people suppressing are atheists but because they are bad people who see religion as a threat to their power. And as history, and modern day examples, show - you can still have bad people who are religious and religious people who do bad things.
