It may also sound familiar from 2003:

“A child that is completely born is a full, legal person entitled to constitutional protections afforded a ‘person’ under the United States Constitution.”

That quote is courtesy of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.

Stalin was a product of western thought, unfortunately. But, I think you are referring to the political definition of Western Europe and North America (democracies). In that case, we are way, way behind communism and the various & sundry dictatorships in terms of killing people. I don’t think even Hitler was in the top ten, despite his efficiencies.

The western world has no bragging rights in the killing department, by the way. We’ve done enough to make Joe proud.

Religion is a manifestation of our nature, as is killing one another. They exist side by side – one does not cause the other.

I’m rambling – here’s my bottom line – take religion out of the world, and the world will be just as it is now. We’d simply have to band together under different cultural banners.

Mark, I think this thread demonstrates that nothing motivates people like religion!

I don’t know if you are old enough to remember the movie “Carwash”, but Richard Pryor played this charlatan preacher (is that redundant?) and he sang a song, “You’ve got to believe in something, why not believe in me?” I think that’s true. The times society has taken religion out of the culture, e.g. the USSR, it has failed. China, Mexico and France have all allowed religion to creep back in after atheistic revolutions (literally) killed off their respective religions. People just have a hard time rallying around a banner that is carried by, well, other people.

In one of her final interviews, Fallaci told The Wall Street Journal: “I am an atheist, and if an atheist and a pope think the same things, there must be something true.”

Here’s an example of a modern-day atheist who gets this point quite well. Please give the post a read. Even if you disgree with her views on Islam, you might appreciate her views on. reason and religion.

Side note: Great story about Billy Graham – he had real influence in the Nixon Administration, and supported a plan advanced by Kissinger to bomb the dikes in North Vietnam, flooding the entire countryside, killing probably a million people. That’s a religious leader urging the death of a million. Just a side note.

Gman – you repeatedly refer back to the Holocaust – it was one event in a long series of events – it’s not at all unique or terribly unusual. We systematically killed one another before, have done so since, will continue to do so. The reason is this: We’re put on a planet by your God – we’re given limited resources, we populate like lab rats dependent only on food supply, and so have to fight one another for those resources. That’s our situation. Your God steps in and says oh, by the way, don’t steal, don’t kill one another. Righto.

I’m rambling – here’s my bottom line – take religion out of the world, and the world will be just as it is now. We’d simply have to band together under different cultural banners.

Religion is personal. It does wonderful things for people. Collectively, less so.

Regarding Vonnegut and farting around, I stand by my support of that. Maybe it’s hard to accept, but I don’t think we’re terribly significant and will likely pass by our own hand or by some natural catastophe. It would be a shame not to have enjoyed life to its fullest while here. Part of that enjoyment is the good we do for each other.

Einstein’s religion was not very close to atheism at all. Atheism means the person believes there is no God. Einstein was closer to the Deists, like the Founding Fathers; the Clockmaker theory. He might have been weak on morality, but he was religious nevertheless.

I don’t think you can find him express a belief in the clockmaker idea. He didn’t believe a god created the universe, he believed the universe was God (technically pantheism). He believed in nothing “supernatural” nor a personal god, leaving him quite a ways away from typical religion.

Were they all wrong? Every one of them, just nuts or mistaken, or given to inductive reasoning as opposed to deductive reasoning? (Remember, the former usually does have to precede the latter or one can’t even come up with a hypothesis). We can’t expect Aquinas to adhere to scientific reasoning when it wasn’t even invented yet. Theology still continues today as a real discipline in most universities- wouldn’t that lead an objective observer to think that there might be something worth thinking about, if so many well-educated people are doing it? In fact, many of the Ivy League schools were founded as divinity schools.

In my humble opinion, evolution can explain religion. There are plenty of books you can read on the subject (Scott Atran’s being an excellent on). And really, arguments from popularity are pretty lame. Billions of people think you’re wrong about Christianity (or more specifically, your brand of Christianity). Are they all nuts?

Let’s just knock off the intelligent people are religious argument, too. There are intelligent people who believe wildy different and contradictory things. Some of them must be smart and wrong. I would submit this: as you move into the elite scientific organizations (NAS, the Royal Society, etc), you find belief in God is a minority. As in, the people dedicated to discovering truths about the world are far less religious than the general population. Isn’t that indicative of something?

I don’t think anyone’s saying religion isn’t worth thinking about. The volumes of argumentation produced by those who don’t believe in it should show that. That’s not the same as saying it’s reasonable. In my experience, the justification you dislike, pure faith, is the overwhelmingly common one, even among apologists attempting to justify their beliefs through argument.

I think you missed my point about Aquinas, too. My criticism of him was that his arguments are really only convincing to those who already believe. He did, however, put forth reasoned justifications. As far as I know, he was the first one. Since Christian theology predates him, I fail to see how it can be claimed Christianity was founded on reason and logic.

So what about Dr. Paul Farmer, the TB doctor, who did deduce that liberation theology seemed to make a hell of a lot of sense? He looked at the theory, looked at the application of the theory, and looked at the outcomes. He did indeed use reasoning to compare religions. People did better under liberation theology. It isn’t a coincidence that Americans have done pretty damn well under democracy, considering its foundations. As I said before, Jesus was the original democrat (with a little d).

I don’t know anything about the situation, so I can’t say much about it. I would ask how exactly liberation theology “worked.” Then I would ask why it “working” means anything. People lead great lives being religious. Does that really mean their religion is correct? What works seems to be an indication that the idea takes into account the behavioral traits of human beings and manipulates them in a useful way. That human beings came up with it isn’t surprising, nor is it surprising that it is religious, given that our brains are predisposed to such beliefs. It still doesn’t make Christianity’s statements about reality correct.

I’m curious about your association of Jesus and democracy. I don’t remember him saying anything about democracy in the gospels. I’m sure you know the idea predated him, too. So, what gives?

St. Paul, was so early in the years of Chrisitanity, they didn’t even have a developed theology. He is not considered to be a Doctor of the Church- he was the one I referred to as being knocked down by lightning. His focus was faith. What some people don’t realize is that there is a huge body of work that has devloped in great detail, and that it’s a work in progress. For some Christians- not all. For some it is all about faith, and faith only. A tiny minority believe every word in the Bible is literally true and prescriptive. But not most- because they think.

I don’t think it doesn’t matter how early he was, as he wrote a large portion of the New Testament. I think that means he’s a pretty important figure and that his ideas are a major part of Christianity.