Page 2 of 6 FirstFirst 12345 ... LastLast
Results 16 to 30 of 79
  1. #16
    NBA sixth man of the year miller-time's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    7,722

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by raiderfan19
    I'm religious but the reason the crusades didn't cause more deaths is because there were less people
    additionally they didn't have the means to kill that many people. when you have the luftwaffe, armored tanks and radio communication it increases your killing power exponentially.

  2. #17
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    29,351

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by miller-time
    correlation does not equal causation. there are other factors besides rejecting religion that caused these travesties. most of them come under some type of state fanaticism (which is akin to religious fervent belief) and/or socioeconomic or political disparity.
    Yes agreed. But what I'm saying is being religious seems to lead to a certain cut-off point in terms of mass moral depravity, whereas having no religion seems to have no cut off point in terms of morally disgusting acts that humans will commit.

    My rhetoric is abit off at the moment as I have 24 hours no sleep from studying and doing coursework, but I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make.

  3. #18
    Extra Cheese LJJ's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    14,549

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    The "most evil" regime of the last century, Nazi Germany, was very religious and largely endorsed by the religious establishment that existed in Germany and Europe at the time. The holocaust was actually only and exclusively made possible because of biases established due to religion.

  4. #19
    Banned
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Posts
    29,351

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by LJJ
    The "most evil" regime of the last century, Nazi Germany, was very religious and largely endorsed by the religious establishment that existed in Germany and Europe at the time. The holocaust was actually only and exclusively made possible because of biases established due to religion.
    even as a Jew I have to consider Stalin's russia to be more "evil" than Nazi germany. Much higher death count. And Nazism's religious emphasis can be argued.

  5. #20
    NBA sixth man of the year miller-time's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Sydney, Australia
    Posts
    7,722

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Young
    Yes agreed. But what I'm saying is being religious seems to lead to a certain cut-off point in terms of mass moral depravity, whereas having no religion seems to have no cut off point in terms of morally disgusting acts that humans will commit.

    My rhetoric is abit off at the moment as I have 24 hours no sleep from studying and doing coursework, but I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make.
    i understand what you are saying but i still disagree. the americans dropped the bomb on civilian targets, the british bombed german cities with horrific losses to civilian life to "lower moral" those are two examples of mass atrocities committed by "religiously backed" governments. obviously those two countries didn't initate the war, and i don't want to get into a conversation about the morality of dropping the bomb, my point is that mass deaths of civilians were options played out by the other side.

    additionally, if you gave osama the bomb in 2001 do you think he would have used that instead? the delivery of mass death is only limited to the technology the person or group has at the time. give any pre-20th century religious war instigators the kinds of weapons we have now and see how many more people they kill.

  6. #21
    Extra Cheese LJJ's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    14,549

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Young
    even as a Jew I have to consider Stalin's russia to be more "evil" than Nazi germany. Much higher death count. And Nazism's religious emphasis can be argued.
    It can absolutely not be argued that Nazism rejected religion. Absolutely not. Revisionist history.


    That leaves communism exclusively then. And pretty much only Stalin's Russia and a few marginal countries. (Because the horrors committed in Mao's China are actually quite overstated and subject to much negative propaganda here in the west)

    Some trend you got there! Yeah, the Stalinistic communism is bad, you are really dropping intellectual gemstones here! Let's conveniently forget that Russia is at least 85% religious and at the time probably an even higher percentage. Let's forget almost all of the government officials of communist Russia were raised on Christian ideals and values. And above all let's forget that 99.99% of Russia's population under the Trarist Theocratic rule basically lived in horrible slavery for centuries. Very convenient indeed.

  7. #22
    7-time NBA All-Star Dasher's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Posts
    12,360

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    The Catholic Franks under Charlemagne butchered their fare share of Saxons and other infidels under the guise of doing it for The Laws.

    All mass murder in the ancient world could be argued to be theocratic genocide because of how intertwined religion was in every day life, warfare, and government.

    The modern genocides you list were made possible by technological advances.

  8. #23
    Titles are overrated Kblaze8855's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    I love me some me.
    Posts
    32,897

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Young
    yep, his name is Joseph Stalin.

    Stalin is supposed to be around 20 million. Japan killed more chinese alone than that.

  9. #24
    NBA Legend Jailblazers7's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2006
    Posts
    18,698

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    I think the change in technology has a lot to do with the death count. Crusaders couldn't just call in an airstrike and level a city or unload a machine gun and kill 100 people.

  10. #25
    Master N0Skillz's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Posts
    3,394

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Young
    The French Revolution
    Pol Pot's reign in cambodia
    Lenin and the Red Terror
    Stalin's regime
    Nazi Germany
    Cuba and Che Guevera's mass murder of 1000s by firing squad.
    Vietnam
    Mao Zedong
    Kim Jong Il

    In Mein Kampf and later in a speech at the Reichstag he said, "... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work." Oh, but he was just using that for rhetorical purposes, he didn

  11. #26
    Decent college freshman
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    2,866

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by LJJ
    The "most evil" regime of the last century, Nazi Germany, was very religious and largely endorsed by the religious establishment that existed in Germany and Europe at the time. The holocaust was actually only and exclusively made possible because of biases established due to religion.
    many in nazi high command including hitler was not religious, certainly in the christian sense, and were interested in promoting even pre christian pagan german culture

    they endorsed or tolerated the christian institutions because of how instilled they were and because it provided easy course to anti-semitism. I don't think anyone believe nazi germany to be some religious fanatical state
    Last edited by heyhey; 03-04-2012 at 12:50 AM.

  12. #27
    The Iron Price Jackass18's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2006
    Location
    Carcosa
    Posts
    9,347

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by Nick Young
    Yes agreed. But what I'm saying is being religious seems to lead to a certain cut-off point in terms of mass moral depravity, whereas having no religion seems to have no cut off point in terms of morally disgusting acts that humans will commit.

    My rhetoric is abit off at the moment as I have 24 hours no sleep from studying and doing coursework, but I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make.
    No, not really. People have done some awfully ****ed up things in the name of religion.

  13. #28
    Extra Cheese LJJ's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    14,549

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by heyhey
    many in nazi high command including hitler was not religious, certainly in the christian sense, and were interested in re-establishing german paganism.

    they endorsed or tolerated the christian institutions because of how instilled they were and because it provided easy course to anti-semitism. I don't think anyone believe nazi germany to be some religious fanatical state
    Revisionist. Nowadays Christian apologetics love nothing more then to point out a handful of disputable and entirely inconsistent "proofs" that show that the Nazis weren't part of their club, but that certainly wasn't the case at the time.

    There was a only a very small percentage of the German population that wasn't Christian during Nazi rule. It's insane to try and state that "many in Nazi high command weren't Christian". Completely false. And Nazi practices were either wholesomely endorsed, or silently endorsed by nearly all Christian institutions that had any contact with it including the papacy.

  14. #29
    Decent college freshman
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    North Carolina
    Posts
    2,866

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by LJJ
    Revisionist. Nowadays Christian apologetics love nothing more then to point out a handful of disputable and entirely inconsistent "proofs" that show that the Nazis weren't part of their club, but that certainly wasn't the case at the time.

    There was a only a very small percentage of the German population that wasn't Christian during Nazi rule. It's insane to try and state that "many in Nazi high command weren't Christian". Completely false. And Nazi practices were either wholesomely endorsed, or silently endorsed by nearly all Christian institutions that had any contact with it including the papacy.
    Nazi germany was a totalitarian state, meaning the state tried to control all aspect of private life including religion. I'm saying that despite its anti semitism nazi germany wasn't a theocratic state unlike say Iran.

    Hitler and co weren't interested in the spreading and establishment of some christian kingdom, they wanted a german state and subvert christianity to fit their program. In a totalitarian regime, the ultimate and only loyalty is to the state - religion is secondary and must be in line with the regime.

    Sure many christians were complicit in the holocaust but I wouldn't call nazi germany religiously motivated. In fact nazi anti-semitism was seldomly justified using religious means as opposed to social darwinism, pseudoeugenics.

    I think there's a difference between bad things done by christians and bad things done in name of christianity.

  15. #30
    Extra Cheese LJJ's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2007
    Posts
    14,549

    Default Re: The rejection of god and religion seems to lead to depraved acts of mass murder

    Quote Originally Posted by heyhey
    Nazi germany was a totalitarian state, meaning the state tried to control all aspect of private life including religion. I'm saying that despite its anti semitism nazi germany wasn't a theocratic state unlike say Iran.

    Hitler and co weren't interested in the spreading and establishment of some christian kingdom, they wanted a german state and subvert christianity to fit their program. In a totalitarian regime, the ultimate and only loyalty is to the state - religion is secondary and must be in line with the regime.

    Sure many christians were complicit in the holocaust but I wouldn't call nazi germany religiously motivated. In fact nazi anti-semitism was seldomly justified using religious means as opposed to social darwinism, pseudoeugenics.

    I think there's a difference between bad things done by christians and bad things done in name of christianity.
    The OP tries to show a correlation between "the rejection of god and religion" and "depraved acts of mass murder", using Nazi Germany as an example.

    There was nothing non-religious or rejecting of god in Nazism, in fact Nazi's embraced religion and vice versa.



    Never did I post that Nazi's did their thing because they were Christians (although you could certainly make a convincing case it was an important prerequisite). Read the premise of the thread boyo.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •