One of the things that I hate to see the most on a blog or as a blog comment is what I like to call the blame game. Let me explain what I'm talking about here. The blame game is played when an atheist or a theist point to each others worldviews as being the cause of some of history's worst atrocities.
Theist like to relate atheism to communism and such figures as Stalin, Lenin, etc. while atheists, and I myself am guilty of having done this when dragged into playing the name game point to the bloody church history. We like to specifically point to the various inquisitions and crusades and witch hunts etc.
The funny thing is that in all reality none of that is relevant since it is not necessarily the ideologies or worldviews themselves that cause these problems but the individuals who take such beliefs to the extreme. People are just people and there are bad people and good people regardless of what those individuals may believe.
If we have learned anything from fundamentalist religions or communist regimes it's that from intended good can also come evil. This is similar to the slogan "guns don't kill people, people kill people." The gun by itself is just a tool to carry out that killing and even on some occasions killing is justified as in a life and death situation where you are required to defend yourself to stop a crazed maniac from murdering you or to save another.
In every group of individuals there is always going to be a few rotten eggs, but people have a horrible tendency to generalize. They make blanket assumptions based on the actions of a few within a group and state that everyone who is an atheist is a communist, murderer, or immoral while everyone who is a Christian is a hypocrite, liar, and murderer.
If you are going to argue about theism or atheism it would serve you best to stick to the subject and stop being distracted by playing the blame game. These types of arguments are pointless and completely unproductive and do nothing to support or deny the beliefs from either side. A simple rule to follow would be to stick to the facts about what can be known about a persons beliefs since just as there are atheists that don't agree on many subjects there are theists who don't entirely support the views of their fellow believers.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This applies to the Church, Communist Russia, and someone who has an AR-15 in his closet just waiting for him to get pissed off enough to use it.
ReplyDeleteHmmm..Lady, I know what you mean. Everytime I see a big butcher knife in someones kitchen I know it's just a matter of time before they get pissed off enough to use it. But I digress....
ReplyDeleteChatpilot,
Guilty here as well. But there is something unique about religionists and their tendencies or perehaps what it provokes in people.
Steven Weinberg said it best:
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."