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Russia's religion is Orthodox Russian. Their government at the time hated these people and did everything they could to discourage their existence as they were part of the former aristocracy.
Committed by the government, correct? America was founded on escaping religious violence. We are the only country that doesn't include religion in its Constitution other than to say there shall be no national religion.
And I'll assert again, that the idea of "believe in my god or your a bad person" is highly offensive and arrogant. But when you're taught nothing else, that's what you'll grow up believing.
I'm agnostic. I don't believe anybody can comprehend or know God. I also don't practice a religion, which makes me an atheist, if theism is the worship of a God. I'm a full-on agnostic/atheist who believes in the separation of church and state.
And if that state sponsored religious persecution ever presents itself in the US, I'll fight against it. But don't try to push this "believe in god or you're bad" BS.
You must have a major malfunction to be getting that out of what I'm saying. Breathe a little. Slow breath. Deep breath. Newly-challenging worldview doesn't need to make you asthmatic.
To be clear, this is the quote that I find extremely arrogant. Believe in organized religion or you most likely will be a bad person. My ethics are just fine, thank you. I don't need a vindictive god to believe otherwise.
This. People just can't stand losing anymore. If you lose an election cycle and policies are put in place you don't like, campaign campaign campaign and try next time. Sway voters and win the next election cycle.
Arrogant and dumb. The Bible promotes genocide, draws rules around slavery, and preaches the subjugation of women, but we're supposed to believe it's some moral roadmap.
I agree with you. Some people are perfectly capable of discerning moral law without any sort of underlying religious belief. (Paradoxically, this idea comes up in the New Testament a few times -- it's not a new concept or anything). But most people aren't.
Yup. If it was atheism vs. religion, it wouldn't have been contained to the Jews.
I agree with most of @IvanKaramazov, but not that. I'm agnostic, but I live my life by the laws and, believe it or not, the Ten Commandments. They are a pretty good set of rules to live by with or without believing in a god.
They really aren't. They're either "No ####, Sherlock" or in direct opposition with the Constitution.
Totally agree, reference the Catholic rapists who are still being protected by the Church. Horrible people who need to go to jail or worse. So let's just say there are bad people and remove the religious requirement for being good. There are bad atheists. There are bad religious people. There are bad people.
Compare the Ten Commandments with the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple. Then tell me which are better to live by.
Christianity and the Holocaust
With all due respect, any statement along the lines of "people can't be morally good without religion" starts the conversation off in a profoundly stupid place.
Okay, sure. I agree.
Yes, I know. And they'd never say that the Christian religion was the cause behind the Holocaust. That's just not in their modus operandi nor is it intellectually honest. Discussing what roles the churches had under Naziism is one thing, to flat out blame the Christian churches would be insane.
I don't believe I need salvation from Christians or anyone other religions. You can believe it just as I believe it to be an arrogant view. And our thankfully Constitution allows for both viewpoints.
I'm frankly tired of arguing the obvious with a bunch of people that obviously have a religious-like bias against religion.
Jesus, you're tendentious. We get it. Religion bad, atheism good, all that rot.
I'll respond as long as people keep claiming I need salvation or religion to be good. Talk about tedious.
No, I know you didn't. See, I'm capable of not straw-manning an argument.
I'm not "broken" or in need of salvation. There's nothing to be "saved" from.
Let me know when the US is actively hostile towards religion. I'll fight along side of you against it.
You're saying that the United States is one of the biggest mass murdering states in history? Are you serious?
I disagree, but that's beside the point. The point is that you are correct that atheists are not somehow automatically more evil or less good than professing Christians, and Christians shouldn't think so. Christianity itself tells Christians that they're not all that great.
Not at all what I'm saying. Not as a government. And they're not openly hostile against religion. I push back (and will continue) against blanket statements that atheists lack morals, or need to be saved, or are the cause of our nations evils (like politicians blaming school shootings on prayer being taken out of schools).
I quoted and bolded every statement I objected to. Tell me which ones were strawmen.
Completely agree with Karma here, but to add…… Ek your sentiments are pure, and I believe your heart is too, but imo your statement here has a massive hole in its logic. It’s missing history and acting as if said history doesn’t have reverberations on today. If we could just start over and wipe the slate clean then I would agree, but we cant, the past (and that past is still very recent) influences today. Basically what the bolded does is completely ignore the centuries of advantages 1 race of people has had over another (and when I say advantages I mean in every imaginable unfair context) and the massive head start. Then when the race that has held ALL the power and advantages finally realizes that how they went about getting those advantages for centuries was wrong says OK we’ll play fair now it’s somehow supposed to just wash history’s repercussion’s away? And then on top of that say but don’t dare give that subjugated race any advantages today because it’s not fair, well man that’s a tough pill to swallow imo for many people of color who’s family have been held down, by literal boots on their necks, for generations.
You haven't been able to bold anything I've said because it's not there. I never said a thing about it and you were using it as a straw man from Page 2 on. The only thing you did on this page was object to Ivan's use of people as broken and in need of saving. That's a philosophical and literary way of looking at things like he does, and I'm not inclined to disagree with him. Nobody says religion is the only thing saving your broken ###. That could be the liberal arts, a love of beauty and symmetry, mathematics, science, anything.
The quote I first replied to. We're better off when most people have a faith in almighty God. I believe that's Christian arrogance. Believe in god and we're better off. I will always push back against that. Bad people are bad people. Period.
My take on it rock is they are tied together (governances of whatever type and religion) largely because the extreme overwhelming majority of people believe in God in one form or another so therefore there seems to be a cause and effect like you point out. But I believe that’s only coincidence because of the majority. Think about it this way, if the numbers were reversed and 98% of people didn’t believe in a God there would be forms of governances that subjugate their peoples (as there is now) but there would also be others that valued freedoms (as there are now). I don’t believe it’s solely religion that’s driving these things to happen, it’s just that having religion is all we know so it’s intertwined into everything.
I was saying that's the optimal situation as opposed to theocracy. Seems fairly obvious that's the point I was trying to make. And the claim that we're better off with a populace that has an underlying Abrahamic or monotheistic religion with "good" and "evil" was an aggregate claim, not a personalized one. You're pushing back against a totally different argument than the one I was giving.
