I'm arguing against a specific claim made by OP and rizeagainst--that religion causes a greater proclivity to violence. Broadening out that claim to other issues without first resolving this one is not helpful to the discussion as it then becomes unmanageable.

Your view seems to be this: I (luckyme) believe that religion causes violence. By this, I mean that some kinds of religion cause a greater proclivity to violence, but others don't necessarily have this effect. However, when you generalize over all religion, you see that being religious correlates with a higher incidence of violence.

My view is that some kinds of religion cause a greater proclivity to violence, but others don't necessarily have this effect. I don't know if your overall generalization is correct and so haven't contested it (although I don't accept it either). I have also claimed that it is misleading to speak as you do, but I don't really care about this much.

As far as I can tell, rizeagainst seems to hold the view that all religious people have a greater proclivity to violence because they are religious (at least of the Abrahamic religions). In other words, he thinks that the goalie also has a higher chance of getting a concussion because the goalie is playing hockey and playing hockey increases your chances of getting a concussion. In other words, rizeagainst doesn't seem to hold your view and it is primarily against his view that I've been arguing.


Hillier? Do you mean Hilbert? Cuz notice how in that part of the discussion he is mainly arguing against bunny, who is also religious.
I don't see how theism has this effect, but whatever.

No, you are continually misinterpreting me. My claim, pretty clearly, is that there is no underlying basic nature of religion that causes violence. The violence we see is the result of the nature of specific forms of religion, but it is not inherent in the basic nature of religion itself.

I don't understand the logic in what you are saying here and so can't form a meaningful response. Perhaps you could address my point more specifically?

Why? You are hopelessly biased against all religious people? Or you actually know the history of the Quakers and find it despicable?

Probably but since two wrongs dont make a right and pointing out the wrongs of another group does noting to lessen the wrongs of the actual group im talking about it makes little difference.

The Quakers are bound to have some moral views i find immoral that are based on what they think their God wants. Im going to be critical of those views depending on circumstance and extremeness of the views. Someone else being less admirable does noting to change that.

Despicable is much, much too strong even for more overtly bad religions. No, I just don't buy into the kid next door apologizing to me with his mom's thumb on his ear.

It's the underlying mindset of religion that makes them dangerous. They make you easy to 'load and fire' in some harmful way that not having it does not.
You argument that "HE hasn't killed anyone .." or the like, misses the whole point of where the danger is and why it is dangerous.

No, I am interpreting you correctly. I strongly disagree with your claim. I think you are a surface scratcher.

I of course think there is nothing wrong with you being critical of moral views that you disagree with. What I disagreeing with is the claim that we should think that the religious views of Quakers cause them to be more immoral than if they didn't have those views. If you focus only on the the ways in which it causes them to be immoral this will appear to be so. However, this is only half the story, if you also look at how their religious beliefs motivates them to moral actions, then I think that on balance their religious beliefs cause them to be more moral than they would be without them (i.e. than the average non-religious person).

This must be some reference to something, because I don't understand it.

morality isn't about the act.

again, surface scratching. A tree can fall down and save a drowning man, it wasn't acting morally.

Once again, I'll note that your argument is different from rizeagainst, who identifies the problem as being the violence commanded by the holy texts of religion. It is pretty ridiculous to accuse me of being a "surface scratcher" because I am responding to the arguments actually given rather than reading your mind to identify some other argument you are only now making.

What is the underlying mindset of religion that is dangerous? I don't think there is an underlying mindset that is common to all religious belief, but evidently you have identified such a feature, so please illuminate me.

Also, your claim to have correctly interpreted my view is laughable. You say "your [Original Position] argument is, 'HE hasn't killed anyone...'" This is in fact not my argument. I've never made this argument, even though you've attributed it to me a few times and I've pointed out that this isn't my argument.

What I've actually said is that some forms of religion do not have any causal features that make their adherents more likely to be violent than they would otherwise be. This is consistent with the claim that religious belief correlates with a greater proclivity to violence. It is not consistent with the claim that all religious belief causes a greater proclivity to violence. You've made the correlation claim, which I've not denied. Rizeagainst seems to have made the causal claim, which I have denied. It is not clear to me what your view is on the causal claim, although your claim that there is a common religious mindset indicates that you might agree with rizeagainst.

To this causal claim the easiest response is by counter-example. I can identify forms of religion that are correlated with lower violence.

Then they don't really believe in one or more of A), B), C), or D). DUCY?

I see we've reached that part of the conversation where you begin communicating in cryptic koans.

Is it your claim that when someone is motivated to e.g. promote nonviolence reconciliation because they believe that God has commanded them to do so that this is just an accidental non-moral feature of religion, but when someone is motivated to kill heretics because they believe that God has commanded them to do so that this is an essential moral feature of religion?

1.You believe in the Jewish God
2.You believe your holy book is inspired by that God
3.You don't believe in some of the verses in that holy book

The question now is, why don't you believe in those verses? It's true they advocate violence but it could be what Your God wants you to do. Also, how do you decide which ones to cherry pick and which ones to ignore? The question, rize, asks is: if you TRULY believe in God and that he inspired that book, why would you ignore anything it says? He's also arguing that it's easily possible for people who really believe in God and believe that He inspired those texts will take them literally and act on them.

Rize has a point that he's taking to the extreme but there's some truth in what he said. If you see the persecution of homosexuals these days, lot of those people are citing bible as a reason for example. Same thing with the islamic extremists that cite the Koran or the abortion bomber. I'm sure many of the mormons justified slavery thanks to their religious book in those old days as well since it promoted it.

So then why do you care? You condemn them for believing (a) - (d), but it ends up that they don't. Why all the passion?

Still waiting for an answer Concerto...

Thats good because im going to be critical of religious people and their religion when they hold immoral views base on their religion.

But an immoral religious view they hold does cause them to be more immoral then if they didn't hold that immoral view.

Sorry but if a Quaker holds a view based on their religion that makes them more moral or more immoral ill give them positive credit or criticism for that religious view.

I dont hold the view religion does no good.

Because opinions can change and new people are born into these religions every day that may not be as ******edly inconsistent with their beliefs as their parents were. And it gives fuel to more passive social agendas that are wrong. People may see that we should stone homosexuals or w/e, and may not do it themselves, but it may give credence to social agendas that discrimiante against gays, etc. They don't need to follow the verses by word for it to have an effect on their opinion and thus what goes on in the world and how fast it progresses.

I agree with this and would like to add that religion also bears the potential to slow down scientific progress. A genius child with huge scientific potential that is born into a fundamental religious family will be indoctrinated with the religion's nonsensical belief system which often will interfere with scientific facts and therefore the child will be unable to realize its full potential.

I'll answer your question, but I have to first point out that my answer will be irrelevant to this particular thread's topic. You see, no matter why, most religious people do not follow the violent practices of their religious texts (and I'm right there with everyone else condemning those practices). So if Rize wants to point out that Jewish texts support violence, that's wholly irrelevant in his condemnation of Jews -- go ahead and round up any Jew who follows the Books as Rize thinks Jews should, and leave the 13 million+ other Jews alone. So pointing out violent passages is a false argument unless he means something else.

So maybe Rize isn't actually saying that religious people must act on these passages to be considered religious (even though he does say this a lot), but they can simply be influenced by them (as in your pro-slavery or anti-homosexual examples). Again, I don't condone such practices, and I am in fact in some agreement on this point. The difference here is that while a majority of religious people don't act out the violence, I'm betting that a majority of religious people are influenced by their texts to believe factually incorrect things or hate certain groups of people. You can clearly see my stance against such ideas from religious people in threads throughout RGT.

My solution, however, is different than Rize's. I know first hand that one can maintain their religion while otherwise passing by Rize's standards. I'm in favor of a better education overall and a more moderate teaching of religion instead of its full abolishment. It seems his fear here is that in the future, some religious people could 'rediscover' the violence and then hurt others. It is my hopes that education can mitigate this risk. He claims the strength of parent indoctrination anyway, so the risk is rather small. Besides, I feel it's necessary given my belief in God.

So, for the answer you wanted. I view the Bible as a story book used to illustrate the power and loving nature God shows to the faithful. It shows us how the first Jews would have lived. I still follow some of the laws, but this is more for traditional/cultural reasons (I'm sure evolutionary psychology can tell us why we want to feel connected to our culture). I follow those that I can and that are acceptable by society. The more I do, the more connected to other Jews I will be. At the same time, there are some clear laws of the state I live in and my heart has its own morals as well, and these have to be followed too.

Other people may have their own reasons. Whatever they may be, pointing out violent passages and concluding that religion is bad is a terrible argument unless you are only including the minority of people who consider themselves religious (and then this argument speaks nothing towards all the rest).

You do realize that science and the eugenics movement inspired the Holocaust so the same criticism could be made of science.

Let's just agree to condemn mankind in general ok?

Science inspired the holocaust?

Which scientific principle is it that talks about throwing jewish people into ovens?

Its like people know noting of the history of Antisemitism.

I think the view of luckyme and batair (at least based on past interactions, I may well be off base somewhat) is that making decisions as to how we should act based on what we think God wants is immoral. We should rather be making those decisions based on <insert preferred moral scheme here>.

Whether someone kills heretics or peacefully intervenes and stops wars is not enough to determine whether they were acting morally. If they did either in the belief they would amass great personal wealth and didn't care about what happened to anyone else it would be immoral, if they did either in the belief it would save millions of lives it would be moral*. If they are making such decisions based on an irrational belief in God then they are abrogating their responsibility as moral agents and are thus being immoral (no matter how they ultimately choose to act).

* Maybe you or they would disagree with my characterisations, but hopefully you get the point. The intention or reason behind the act is important in determining the morality of that act. (At least as I understand them).

EDIT: In fact, in luckyme's case, I think it's not so much the intention or reason but the method by which one arrives at those intentions and reasons. Basing anything on irrational beliefs is a Bad Thing, in principle.