Putting my views of Religion and Society to the test.
Offline In my last topic, I ragged on others for not testing their arguments in favour of their view on religion and society.
In light of this I have decided to post a rather shortened version of mine.
I propose, that using basic psychology that we can determine that it is rather likely that the societal ills are the driving force behind religion rather than vice-versa.
It is rather elementry that people derive their own views on religion based on experience, society etc...
We should thus expect that people in a place with societal ills, would have different religion than those that do not. However, if I am wrong, we should see sociatal ills regardless of their views on religion.
I came across this study:
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2006-7.pdf
[wow it has numbers! imagine that!]
relatively secular nations do not have lower homicide rates than nations where people accept
God and Heaven, but do not embrace their malevolent counterparts, the Devil and Hell. Collective
beliefs suggesting a relatively benevolent religious cosmos are negatively correlated with homicide
when included in a regression analysis with more malevolent, dualist dimensions of the religious
cosmos.
Here's a relativly simple explanation:
What to religious people blame evil on? Satan, the devil etc....
It is hence, no surprise that social ills will be associated with high belief in Satan/Hell.
What do religious people attribute good to?
God, heaven etc...
It is thus no surprise that religious people in prosperious nations do not believe in Satan, hell etc...
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Don't bother, Clock. Alison has her own special little window from which she views history, geopolitics and the rest of the world.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
Out of curiousity:
Is the U.S. currently undertaking ethnic cleansing as well? The majority of the casualties in Iraq would almost certainly be arabic.
Or was the butchery of arabs more a means to an end (the end being the securing of hydrocarbons and a frontline base of operations in the Persian Gulf?) than an intentional, systematic elimination of a group of people deemed sub-human?
As ClockCat pointed-out, Saddam did not exclusively target Kurds; he targeted Sunni and Shiite 'enemies' of his (which I still hardly condone). Calling it 'genocide' is a stretch (consider: is Kim Jong Ill's butchery of asians within his own borders 'genocide'?). He even negotiated with Kurdish seperatists in the 70s and handed them autonomy (thoough, for a variety of reasons, this agreement did not last. The buckling of the agreement was what led to the airstrikes and associated gas attacks already mentioned). Now, is any better that he decided to crack down on insurgent populations and bomb their villages with Sarin gas simply so that you're influence in the region can remain unchecked? Of course not. But that is not the same thing as creating an industrial complex whose sole purpose is the eradication of a 'lesser people'.
Uh. This would be what I like to call, "Just making shit up."
'Predominently Sunni'? The party that compleetely abolished Sharia law and then sent goon squads out to actively assassinate Sunni groups, among others?
No. Sorry.
Saddam himself, to the best of my knowledge, never clearly proclaimed a religious identity for himself.
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
*sigh*
From this topic
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/17561
You can pretty much guess what my views are regarding insert historical event.
And Kevin, Hussien was clearly Sunni. Seriously. Look it up. When you copied/pasted from the wikipedia article, did you not notice that under religious stance he was Sunni?
And seriously, look up the definition of genocide. Just because he killed other people doesn't mean he didn't target the Kurds for their ethnicity. The Ba'ath party is pan-Arabic. Do you even know what that means? Kurds are not Arabs.
...Okay, so your argument then is all the historical evidence that leads to showing religion has been detrimental... you are going to ignore because you choose to think it would have happened anyway while ignoring the fact that these events were started solely because of religious arguments?
Basically, you are saying you made up your mind and no one can change it, no matter what they present to you. :I Why did you start this thread?
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
The thread that I linked to asks for a mechanism to differeientiate between whether or not it would have happened with or without religion.
There does not seem to be a coherent mechanism to do so to divorce cause from the complexity of human nature and society.
The US Government doesn't give a fuck what they are. They're over there to take resources and establish a foothold in the area, just like you said. If the US Military wanted to cleans them, they wouldn't be around anymore.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
Not so much for the Prop 8 example. The anti-gay agenda is almost entirely religion driven. If you ask someone why they don't like homosexuals you will likely receive an answer based on the OT. I don't see a problem saying that the anti-gay agenda exists because of religion.
After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him.
The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.
MySpace
But Spike, maybe this happened because religion had nothing to do with it!