Separate Studies Conclude: Atheism = Peace, Religiosity = Higher Sociological Problems

reply to posts by randyvs and ElectricUniverse

Thank you both for providing such perfect examples of the link between religiosity and blind, unreasoning hatred and aggression.

I knew it wasn't going to be long before someone posted the intellectually dishonest myth that "atheism killed more people" because of certain murderous regimes (even though atheism was not the source of the killings). This does, of course, overlook the numerous atrocities committed by theocracies worldwide and all of the wars participated in by theistic countries. I suppose those perpetuating this myth looked at nothing more than the title. Killing for god always seems to get the free pass and garner more respect.

Originally posted by PowerSlave
Athesists always seem to come off as elitist or proclaim themselves as intellectually superior and of a stronger mind. Spewing off dribble that suggests religious people are weak minded.

Really?

Which atheists in this thread have proclaimed themselves intellectually superior or that religious people are weak minded?

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
what I said is that Communism is an atheist belief.

That is by far one of the most hilarious assertions of the week.

Let's start here: atheism is a lack of belief, specifically in deities.

Communism is a political philosophy and system.

Failure to understand the distinctions has walled you in to making some really comically egregious claims in this thread.

Atheism and by association communism is responsible for more slaughter than all other religions combined fact. So how atheism=peace is complete and utter bs.
The notion that two atheist based (check the aims of these organisations) separate studies somehow wipes out the undeniable record of history is laughable.
I will file this in the toilet.

Originally posted by sinthia
Atheism and by association communism is responsible for more slaughter than all other religions combined fact. So how atheism=peace is complete and utter bs.
The notion that two atheist based (check the aims of these organisations) separate studies somehow wipes out the undeniable record of history is laughable.
I will file this in the toilet.

So this myth persists in the UK also?

Somehow I feel that you only read the title and didn't examine any of the links.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


There is no myth. I read the links as should be evident from my post.

Originally posted by sinthia
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

There is no myth. I read the links as should be evident from my post.

Religious conviction has killed far more people than statist regimes that employed atheism ever did. I'd suggest you brush up on history before issuing false blanket statements, especially those that are refuted in study after study.

Originally posted by DeathShield
Well so far i disagree with the notion that atheism leads to a more peaceful society. I don't think any one ideology is truly capable of leading to a more peaceful society in the empirical world. You will always have dissenters and rabblerousers regardless of religion and atheism. Stalin and hitler were Atheists. But so are many great scientists and philosophers. The same holds true with christianity, there have been villains but there have also been prominent scientific and philanthropic minds. Therefore, to claim that one or the other leads to an overall favorable outcome would require extraordinary evidence. That aside the rest of your post following that i think you've laid out a fairly reasonable and agreeable opinion. Bare in mind i am a "believer"

In my thoughts, although I didn't write it down, I was excluding the extremities in either direction. I was merely speaking of humanity on the whole, ignoring the rare spikes, an average if you will.

These are tendencies of humanity, although not hard and fast rules as humanity is basically both rational and irrational. Any amount of study in the formation and history of mass movements will see the same sorts of patterns emerge and they have distinct similarities with religious fervor.

That may be because that is the way humanity is moved or something ingrained in religion. I tend to believe the former, but I suppose one could make a case either way.

As for Hitler, it's unclear if he was an atheist or not. It is more likely that he was some kind of weird combination of Christian (you can reference Mein Kampf or many of his speeches/policies) and/or Norse Pagan more than an atheist.

As for Stalin, he's less an atheist than he is like John Smith (of the Mormons), in that he created his own state religion in a deeply religious country. This smacks more of manipulation than anything else so it's hard to a real atheist would use religion against the religious to gain power. Again, a case could be made either way.

Amen to that brother. That is the biggest hurdle i run into when debating with Young earth creationists. Simple logic leads us to the conclusion that if God's work is observable and self-evident then it stands to reason that sciences conclusions in regards to the age of the earth, biological evolution and the creation of the universe are the observations of how god created us and how he intended for the universe to work. So if science says that there is evidence that we evolved from a common ancestor with modern day Apes then it stands to reason that god created us from apes. If god didn't want us to know the true age of the earth or other things that could potentially refute the bible, his supposed word, then we would not have the ability to question it.

Agreed. If God does exist, of which I've seen no evidence, then it would be an insult to him to refuse the logic and intelligence he has bestowed upon us and an insult to ourselves to be sheep.

Originally posted by john124
reply to post by devilishlyangelic23

 

the atheists that i've come across have been some of the rudest, intolerant, ignorant people i've met

Any examples?

"Atheists" are only atheists because theists exist. If theists hadn't invented the idea of god, then non-believers wouldn't need such a labelling.

pretty much an atheist cannot "exist" without a theist existing. It's the opposite of theist.

the atheists that i've come across have been some of the rudest, intolerant, ignorant people i've met

There's some real irony for you. Calling others rude, intolerant and ignorant by making a statement that is rude, intolerant and ignorant. Just... wow...

I tire of the lame attempts at slander that is rife in these threads.

Atheism is not a belief, so you can not present attributes or study the literature because there is no preset views outside of deities and the lack of evidence in their existence.

Christians don't believe in Zeus or Ra, they are atheists about all religions but their own. They don't believe they exist and often scoff at how ridiculous the other religions are (Hindu or Mormonism are good examples).

The main difference, is that we consider the Christian God to be exactly the same as those other religions.

That's the lack of belief that somehow created a logical bridge to mass murder? It's simply wrong, historically ridiculous, insulting, and slanderous to claim atheism has caused anything.

Communism and human sickness have caused the mass murder, and if you believe in God then you have to believe that God watched all that with indifference and did nothing.

God watches the rapes and murders, God watches slavery and starvation, and God watches as small children are horribly raped and murdered, but he surely wants to listen to your petty problems with the electric bill or which job you'll take, or in which hole you put your penis in. He'll certainly intercede then right?

You wonder why we can't believe?

Hmmm...wouldn't an agnostic view also lend itself to a peaceful society? Someone who says "I lean in this or that direction, but I don't know" is likely to be more tolerant than both theists and atheists. An agnostic also has the ability to gather grains of truth from either side.

[edit on 31-5-2010 by SmokeandShadow]

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

I am sorry but these sort of "research" are nothing but a scam, and shows these people would rather ignore history, than learn from it.

I did some research on this topic here Killed in the Name of Christ now read it and tell me about history.

Atheism gave us Communism. Communism is an atheist, and a materialistic point of view of the world, in which humans are seen as robots without a soul/spirit.

Communism only adopted atheism because religion is just another form of control over the people and the communist would not tolerate that, there totalitarianism resulted in atheism not the other way around.

Yet Communism, an atheist belief, has caused more death in the 19th and 20th century than all world wars, and other conflicts from around the world put together.

Communism sure has caused alot of deaths, but so has religion. IMO religion has caused the most deaths throughout history.

The reality is these are all just systems of control that lead to murder. We need a better system.

Atheism is not a synonym of peace... I apologize for raining in this padade, or should I write parady?

Read and comprehend your history and the bloody path it has cut throughout the centuries. Remember that 2 wrongs or the lesser of 2 wrongs don't make it right.





[edit on 31-5-2010 by LDragonFire]

This is a chicken and egg situation. Now its not very deep analysis to just go "well these countries arnt very religious and safe, they must be safe because they arn't very religious!". However, perhaps they arn't very religious because they are safe? I mean I see religion as something like race, it's an identity thing. People always need to identify with something, if there are troubles affecting a community or state, church attendance goes up, because in times of upheaval people need to cling to something to let them know who they are. Its like with the border states in the USA, some men go and join white supremacist groups, or start identifying illegals with only the mexican race, its not because they are naturally racist, its because they need something to help them make sense of the world! When life is tough, people need a crutch to stand on and religion provides that very nicely by helping them make sense of the world and whats going on.

On the surface it may seem like religion is the cause of war and horrible things, but if you look a bit deeper it gets a lot more complicated!

Originally posted by bonnieprince
On the surface it may seem like religion is the cause of war and horrible things, but if you look a bit deeper it gets a lot more complicated!

This is true, and the second video alludes to this fact. Society is very complex and neither study uses nearly enough datapoints to determine if correlation indicates causation. But, two separate studies using different datapoints indicate the same results, and another poster listed a third study focusing on American states only and found similar results. There appears to be something to it.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by bonnieprince
On the surface it may seem like religion is the cause of war and horrible things, but if you look a bit deeper it gets a lot more complicated!

This is true, and the second video alludes to this fact. Society is very complex and neither study uses nearly enough datapoints to determine if correlation indicates causation. But, two separate studies using different datapoints indicate the same results, and another poster listed a third study focusing on American states only and found similar results. There appears to be something to it.

I would like to see a time comparison of some sort so we can see if spikes in violence in certain regions are followed by spikes of religion, and if it could be narrowed down enough, we could try see which one comes first. It'd be an interesting study for sure!

Originally posted by bonnieprince
I would like to see a time comparison of some sort so we can see if spikes in violence in certain regions are followed by spikes of religion, and if it could be narrowed down enough, we could try see which one comes first. It'd be an interesting study for sure!

Religion did spike up following 9/11
according to this Pew Research study

The original ideas behind Christianity, Buddhism etc. were "hijacked" by the people who want to abuse them and control people.

No matter what the case, I think one should never force his views on another person. That is not true acceptance, it's just not real. I think one of the best ways of making some of the religious types think about their theories about the "man in the sky" is feeding them as much scientific info as possible. If that won't turn their heads, I doubt anything will.

On the other hand, people like Dawkins are no better, attacking religious people. But i understand how some of this religious mumbo jumbo could irritate scientific people like him.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


Well seems like the corrilation could be thought of both ways, but not one way or the other it would seem... I just more want to make the point its not only a one way street and religion isn't completely evil and responsible for heaps of things.