A World Without God

[SteelDisciple]

Would the world be a better place without Christianity or any other faith based beliefs?

That’s a question commonly asked by atheists. And for good reason.
A man kills his son because he believed he was possessed
A woman kills her husband because she believes god told her to do it.
A man blows himself up in a populated subway because he believes his faith demands it of him.
Thousands upon thousands are slaughtered in a mass Crusade because religious/political leaders claim it to be the will of God.

With a history like that, it’s easy to see why some blame Christianity for the problems of the world. It’s the easiest, quickest way to explain things away. The perfect excuse.

But I think there’s one thing this “logic” is missing. One important factor.

Would the Crusades still have occurred if Christianity had never existed? Absolutely. The political figures in power used Christianity because it was the easiest way to abuse their power. If they didn’t have that excuse, they would have used something else or created something else to push their agenda.

If the man who killed his son hadn’t been religious, he still would have killed his son, most likely for an equally simplistically stupid reason.

Why? Because those corrupt with power, those who murder had a problem to begin with…INSIDE themselves. Chemical imbalances, psychotic behavior, obsession, power. They would have these no matter what belief or lack there of they had. These problems didn’t start with Christianity. But Christianity is often used as a scapegoat.

It doesn’t help that today’s mass media have completely confused the masses about what Christianity and what Christians themselves are REALLY like and what they believe. I’ve talked to many…from the regular joe to the mega PHD atheists and it’s always the same….these far out beliefs of what Christians BELIEVE. Things which have nothing to do with Christianities…but they’ve been convinced that’s what Christians are like.

Christianity isn’t the problem. It’s those in power, those that seek to use anything they can to manipulate and control. And mass media, who has distorted what Christianity is REALLY like…and the truth just keeps getting more and more distorted from word of mouth to more media injection.

 

[Freodin]

It’s the easiest, quickest way to explain things away.

This is what you got right.... so I cannot understand why you fell for the same fallacy.

Christianity - or religion in general - is not responsible for all of the problems on earth. Not many people would claim that, not even many Atheists.

But religion - and, yes, Christianity - IS responsible for some of the "problems" - problems that would not exist without religion. Which problems would have replaced them is irrelevant now.

Let´s take the Crusades for example. The Crusades were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals.... but without Christianity, they would not have happened. There was no political, financial or social aim to be achived by attacking a rather backward city in a far-away place most people only knew from stories. Jerusalem was irrelevant from almost any point of view for almost every Middle-European.... except for one point: it was the "Holy City"!
Without religion, no cause for that war. Another war might have happened, due to the political and social problems in that time.... but not this war. Not in that scale, not in that length.

So Christianity isn´t that problem, but it is part of the problem. To blame everything on "the mass media" is just as wrong as blaming everything on Christianity.

You identified one use of scapegoats. Don´t use another one for yourself.

 

[SteelDisciple]

This is what you got right.... so I cannot understand why you fell for the same fallacy.

Christianity - or religion in general - is not responsible for all of the problems on earth. Not many people would claim that, not even many Atheists.

But religion - and, yes, Christianity - IS responsible for some of the "problems" - problems that would not exist without religion. Which problems would have replaced them is irrelevant now.

Let´s take the Crusades for example. The Crusades were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals.... but without Christianity, they would not have happened. There was no political, financial or social aim to be achived by attacking a rather backward city in a far-away place most people only knew from stories. Jerusalem was irrelevant from almost any point of view for almost every Middle-European.... except for one point: it was the "Holy City"!
Without religion, no cause for that war. Another war might have happened, due to the political and social problems in that time.... but not this war. Not in that scale, not in that length.

So Christianity isn´t that problem, but it is part of the problem. To blame everything on "the mass media" is just as wrong as blaming everything on Christianity.

You identified one use of scapegoats. Don´t use another one for yourself.

Wrong. Christianity was the excuse for the Crusades. The Crusades themselves had nothing to DO with religion. At all. Your statement proves what I'm saying:

"Let´s take the Crusades for example. The Crusades were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals.... but without Christianity, they would not have happened. There was no political, financial or social aim to be achived by attacking a rather backward city in a far-away place most people only knew from stories. "

Yes..they were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals....goals which had NOTHING to do with religion and had MORE to do with just one city. (the Crusades spanned far more than one single city, fyi) It was ALL about power. It was about people wanting more power, more control over everything and everyone. Had they not use "religious" reasons...they would have found another excuse. They would have used something else.

Your comment is like saying if Jews never existed, Hitler never would have started a war. Riiiight........

 

[CSmrw]

So what is the point?

 

[Freodin]

Wrong. Christianity was the excuse for the Crusades. The Crusades themselves had nothing to DO with religion. At all. Your statement proves what I'm saying:

"Let´s take the Crusades for example. The Crusades were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals.... but without Christianity, they would not have happened. There was no political, financial or social aim to be achived by attacking a rather backward city in a far-away place most people only knew from stories. "

Yes..they were used by political, financial and social powers to further their goals....goals which had NOTHING to do with religion and had MORE to do with just one city. (the Crusades spanned far more than one single city, fyi) It was ALL about power. It was about people wanting more power, more control over everything and everyone. Had they not use "religious" reasons...they would have found another excuse. They would have used something else.

Your comment is like saying if Jews never existed, Hitler never would have started a war. Riiiight........

If the Jews had never existed, Hitler never would have started the Holocaust. Completely right.

Learn your history, pal.

The antisemitic parts of the Nationalsocialists doctrines were based on the existence of a seperate, international subculture within German and Middleeuropean culture... the Jews. The Nazi racial ideologies would have materialized itself in the same way as it did, against eastern Europeans, Asians, Africans... but the destruction of a part of their own culture - the Jewish part - would not have happened. So much for that.

But the analogy you presented is not only false... it does not fit your point as well.

Religion is a certain worldview that leads peoples to certain actions - for example: crusades.
Hitler´s "religion" was a mysticist conglomerate of nordic sagas and pseudoscientific race ideologies.

HAD IT NOT EXISTED, HITLER WOULD NOT HAVE STARTED A WAR.

There were no political, social or financial reasons to start WW2. In fact, there were enormous political, social and financial reasons AGAINST this war. Without Hitler´s "religion", it would not have happened. Political, social and financial powers used this war to further their own goals, but ideology drove it.

The same is correct for the Crusades.

 

[Freodin]

So what is the point?

The point seems to be, instead of "It´s all Christianity´s fault" - "It´s all the media´s fault".


Scapegoating is not a good way to look at and solve problems. I though I made that clear in my first post. Sad that some people have to resort to such tactics.

 

[SteelDisciple]

The point seems to be, instead of "It´s all Christianity´s fault" - "It´s all the media´s fault".


Scapegoating is not a good way to look at and solve problems. I though I made that clear in my first post. Sad that some people have to resort to such tactics.

Medias fault? Never said that....the media contributes to such things like peoples misunderstanding of christians.

Looks like you lost the point....Hitler didn't start the war over his ideals...he started the war because he was crazy. It's true he hated jews. But that wasn't the reason he started it. He wanted the world.

I was never tryng to make a scapegoat. I'm saying that human nature can be evil. You are right on one thing....beliefs can be a driving force for such things, such as Hitler....but ideals can be just as bad. And there can never be a world WITHOUT ideals.

You could have a world without God...but you would still have individual ideals...

The Crusades would have happened NO MATTER WHAT. The names would have changed, but the slaughtering would have still occured. Why? Because they wanted power and control. That is their need and their want. That had nothing to do with religion....it had everything to do with greed.

 

[trunks2k]

Wrong. Christianity was the excuse for the Crusades. The Crusades themselves had nothing to DO with religion. At all. Your statement proves what I'm saying:.

But his point is that without christianity, they would have not been able to drum up the support for the Crusades. Because the area meant nothing to the general people of the time other than it was a Holy City. It is possible that leaders of the time may have come up with some other way of getting the necessary support, but that is mostly pure speculation. The fact of the matter is that the support for the Crusades was there due to strongly held religious beliefs.

 

[CSmrw]

The point seems to be, instead of "It´s all Christianity´s fault" - "It´s all the media´s fault".


Scapegoating is not a good way to look at and solve problems. I though I made that clear in my first post. Sad that some people have to resort to such tactics.

It's all humanity's fault. It's all God's Fault. Pheh.

It's all....just the way things happen when you place fear and faith before logic and reason.

 

[quatona]

I do not think religion is the cause for people to act in a certain way.
Moreso gods, due to their claimed absoluteness, are almost perfect objects to project one´s desires and purposes onto, thereby giving them more weight and having them appear somewhat objective.

It´s not a good idea to blame the negative acts of individual Christians on Christianity in general. Likewise, and for some reason the OP does not mention it, it is not a good idea to blame the positive acts of Christians on Christianity in general.
If, now, we also stop blaming the acts of persons from other religions on their religions in general, we might actually get somewhere.

Just for completion´s sake.

 

[TheMissus]

A world without logic makes me shudder even more.

 

[hypnotism]

Yes much better.

 

[gwenmead]

We don't know for sure that any given event in history would or would not have happened if some detail had been different, and until somebody figures out time machines, we're not going to be able to know for sure. So it's kind of moot to claim that the Crusades would have happened without Christianity, for instance. Maybe they would have, maybe not.

Christianity is like a lot of human institutions: sometimes it's done great things, sometimes really rotten things. I don't know what the world would be like without it, if it would be better off, just the same, or worse. It'd be a different world, but that's as far as I'd venture to guess.

And no, Christianity didn't cause all the horrible things that have happened. It has contributed to some, but isn't the be-all and end-all problem for all time. What frustrates me as an ex-believer is seeing the church refuse to take responsbility for the times when it has been involved in something awful. (The recent sexual abuse scandals in the RCC come to mind here - though they're being addressed now, for a long time the church itself aided and abetted the commission of crimes by its members.)

But I certainly can't and won't blame any religion for everything that goes wrong in the world. That's just silly.

 

[ReverendDG]

Would the world be a better place without Christianity or any other faith based beliefs?
if there wasn't christianity there would be something else, people need something to believe in.

Christianity isn’t the problem. It’s those in power, those that seek to use anything they can to manipulate and control. And mass media, who has distorted what Christianity is REALLY like…and the truth just keeps getting more and more distorted from word of mouth to more media injection.

i would disagree with this in a way, christianity isn't totally to blame, but its one of the big things the blame, because it effects the largest amount of people. the people that manipulate and control believe in what they do though, if you look at hitlers writings he believed god wanted him to.
when i read things trying to deflect blame off religion, the first thing i can think is, the person doesn't believe people can do such things in the name of god
but they can

as for the media, they don't know who to ask really, so many christians claim one thing and others claim another
some dwell on fire and brimstone and hell and others dwell on the love of god and none of the bad stuff
some are so sick that they think that god hates his children and curses them with homosexuality
theres no such thing as a unified church, the media just shows the most vocal of the nutjobs

its not about the media, its about christianity not agreeing on anything

 

[JesusWalks78]

There would be nothing without God.

 

[Misty Minister]

We don't know for sure that any given event in history would or would not have happened if some detail had been different, and until somebody figures out time machines, we're not going to be able to know for sure. So it's kind of moot to claim that the Crusades would have happened without Christianity, for instance. Maybe they would have, maybe not.

Christianity is like a lot of human institutions: sometimes it's done great things, sometimes really rotten things. I don't know what the world would be like without it, if it would be better off, just the same, or worse. It'd be a different world, but that's as far as I'd venture to guess.

And no, Christianity didn't cause all the horrible things that have happened. It has contributed to some, but isn't the be-all and end-all problem for all time. What frustrates me as an ex-believer is seeing the church refuse to take responsbility for the times when it has been involved in something awful. (The recent sexual abuse scandals in the RCC come to mind here - though they're being addressed now, for a long time the church itself aided and abetted the commission of crimes by its members.)

But I certainly can't and won't blame any religion for everything that goes wrong in the world. That's just silly.

"People use religion as an excuse to behave really crappy to each other""
Lister from Red Dwarf

 

[TricksterWolf]

John Lennon was as wrong as the fundamentalists who want to convert everyone to their faith. The world would not be a better place if everyone was atheist/Christian/Muslim/sold Amway products.

The problem is not religion. It's not even the differences between people. It's the way we choose to handle those differences. Every time we write someone off because they're different--make them less than human in our minds, or "unsalvageable"--we use religion or whatever as an excuse to do something terrible. Every time someone accuses a religion of being ultimate evil, or a political party of being the tool of evil, or an ideology of being grounded in "the hate of freedom", we take the easy way out. This is where our problems come from...as TS Eliot wrote, the endless quest to think well of ourselves.

Trickster

 

[TricksterWolf]

A world without logic makes me shudder even more.

I thought we were already there?

Trickster