Faith only as good as the people that believe in it

[Stravo]

We've seen the argument trotted out many times during anti religious debates "Religion bought us Crusades, Inquisition, etc."

Now my question is one of turning the argument around and asking how is that different than saying "Science bought us the holocaust, Industrialized War and Dehumanization of man."

To get my point what I'm saying essentially is if by attacking religion and faith in general and stating that religion has only brought us strife and genocide can the same not be said of science? That science industrialized killing in a way that the bloodiest Crusader or Inquisitor could never have carried out in his lifetime. Science created the possibility of genocide on a scale not able to be carried out before like the holocaust. Science made war far more brutally efficient and thus bloodier and costlier in lives.

People might say Science didn't kill those people, people killed those people utilizing science as a tool.

But can't you say the same about religion? Religion is only as good as the people who have faith in it. The same Catholic church that gave us Crusades and Inquisitions also helped create some of the artistic masterpieces of human history. The Inquisitors that burned people at the stake used religion and dogma as a tool.

What are your thoughts on this argument?

[Darth Wong]

We've seen the argument trotted out many times during anti religious debates "Religion bought us Crusades, Inquisition, etc."

Now my question is one of turning the argument around and asking how is that different than saying "Science bought us the holocaust, Industrialized War and Dehumanization of man."

Simple: science is not an ideology. Science does not say what is and isn't morally correct; it only says what is and isn't objectively accurate.

To get my point what I'm saying essentially is if by attacking religion and faith in general and stating that religion has only brought us strife and genocide can the same not be said of science? That science industrialized killing in a way that the bloodiest Crusader or Inquisitor could never have carried out in his lifetime. Science created the possibility of genocide on a scale not able to be carried out before like the holocaust. Science made war far more brutally efficient and thus bloodier and costlier in lives.

People might say Science didn't kill those people, people killed those people utilizing science as a tool.

But can't you say the same about religion? Religion is only as good as the people who have faith in it. The same Catholic church that gave us Crusades and Inquisitions also helped create some of the artistic masterpieces of human history. The Inquisitors that burned people at the stake used religion and dogma as a tool.

What are your thoughts on this argument?

See above. You can blame religion because it purports to teach people how to behave. Science makes no such claims, any more than mathematics does.

[Wicked Pilot]

And science also brought us medicine, agriculture, electricity, running water, X-Box, and a multitude of other technologies that have increased quality of life and life expectancy to a level previously thought unimaginable. When someone these days has a kid, is their first thought usually "how am I going to pay for their college?", or "I wonder if they live to see their second birthday?" What exactly has religion done for us now?

[Plekhanov]

We've seen the argument trotted out many times during anti religious debates "Religion bought us Crusades, Inquisition, etc."

Now my question is one of turning the argument around and asking how is that different than saying "Science bought us the holocaust, Industrialized War and Dehumanization of man."

To get my point what I'm saying essentially is if by attacking religion and faith in general and stating that religion has only brought us strife and genocide can the same not be said of science? That science industrialized killing in a way that the bloodiest Crusader or Inquisitor could never have carried out in his lifetime. Science created the possibility of genocide on a scale not able to be carried out before like the holocaust. Science made war far more brutally efficient and thus bloodier and costlier in lives.

People might say Science didn't kill those people, people killed those people utilizing science as a tool.

But can't you say the same about religion? Religion is only as good as the people who have faith in it. The same Catholic church that gave us Crusades and Inquisitions also helped create some of the artistic masterpieces of human history. The Inquisitors that burned people at the stake used religion and dogma as a tool.

What are your thoughts on this argument?

Science might well facilitate immoral actions but unlike religion it doesn’t cause them.

[defanatic]

We look at the "why".

Why did person do immoral deed 'x'?
Is it because of religion? e.g. Because God told him to do 'x', or 'x' follows logically from his religious texts and laws.
Is it because of science? When I say that, I don't mean science regrew his leg, and he kicked someone. I'm saying someone thought "because theory 'y' is so far true, 'x' must follow".

It is far more likely that the person committing 'x' is doing it because of religion than science. Although those rate fairly low. Most of the time, it's personal. Didn't religion bring about the Holocaust?

[Admiral Johnason]

Science is mearly the means to an end. It never actually casues a war. Religion is the cause of most wars. Science has mearly helped the theocratic wars by providing newer means of making war.

[Ariphaos]

We've seen the argument trotted out many times during anti religious debates "Religion bought us Crusades, Inquisition, etc."

Now my question is one of turning the argument around and asking how is that different than saying "Science bought us the holocaust, Industrialized War and Dehumanization of man.

The holocaust, and all genocides, were brought upon by one or more inherent, nearly superstitious beliefs. Science no more caused the attempted extermination of the Jews than it caused the attempted extermination of the Cathars.

Dehumanization of man?

If by that you mean 'cut off our high horse' than good. It needed to be done for a long time. We are only as special as our achievements, not for any gift of birth.

Industrialization of war is the result of industrialization period. It's not, particularly, going to stop.

Religion often promises eternal life. Christianity has promised such for a very long time.

Science has identified seven causes of aging, and the multitude of diseases and whatnot that come with it. Science has made no promises to eternal youth, eternal life, or immunity to disease*.

One of these two may well provide such gifts. I know who I'm betting on.

* Wiithin such bounds as can be deemed reasonable, the heat death of the Universe would be a problem.

[NecronLord]

Let's not forget that the seeds of the holocaust were sown by long religious hectoring of the Jews as 'Christ Killers' for centuries. What's more, Nazi ideology was also inspired heftily by religion, and had many common traits. For that matter, the support of the Catholic Centre Party put Hitler in power. Religion is quite intertwined with the Nazi-Genocide.

Religion "gave us" the Holocaust too.

[The Guid]

See now I disagree with most of the board about this. I believe that any belief system, when taken in under its broadest umbbrella, is, as the title suggests, only as good as the people underneath it.

Take Christianity for example. I have met many people who, due to their faith, have devoted themselves to helping others. The Salvation Army is a Christian organisation, and there are many other Christian charitable organisations around the world. On the flip side however there is genocide, ignorance and hate. How do these two sides of the same belief system collide? Simple, its all about the people. Person A is a nice person, Person B is jackass. They both just happen to be Christians.

Islam also. Again I have met many nice muslims, and in the middle ages the Islamic world is what kept the works of Aristotle alive, that were the paragon of religous tolerance and were the ones being vicously attacked by the more ignorant Christian world. Now we see a lot of asshatery from the Islamic world, even whilst many muslims fit in fine with the Western, I consider advanced, morality.

I believe the same could be said of any belief system.

I want to make the difference between moral system and belief system. Not every Christian has the same moral system - there are Situation Ethicists, there are those that follow Natural Law and there are Biblical literalists. They share a belief system but not a morality system.

I make this distincation because I would not argue that humanism has the same kind of mix of ass and nice. I would however be willing to suggest, though I do not have the backing but I decided to wait to see if anyone bothered to challenge me on it first, that there would be the best and the worst of humanity in atheism which I believe to be a belief system, but not a morality system.

[Ghost Rider]

In the end, religion can cause good, but sadly out of some inborn fear or reward. Same reason it cause pain...because it promises justice that you smited your foe. Religion does dictate a set way of thinking and morality.

Science does neither because it doesn't tell you if you whack that fool across the street, your life will be filled with milk and honey. Science is in the end nothing but a tool.

[Magnetic]

Not wanting to speak for the original poster, but perhaps when he says "science", . . he rather means "technology". What I am reading is that, through scientific advancement, technology advances the ability of an ideology to kill many more people, such as the Nazi ideology did.

Science itself can't actually DO anything, but allows for the ABILITY for things to be done, whether good or bad. Perhaps, in the same way, religion itself can't actually DO anything either, but gives the "legs" for either things good or (unfortunately) bad. The equalizing factor is humanity. What will a person DO with either of those two influences, that will determine the outcome.

[Magnetic]

BTW, . . . . . . . DANG, Ghost Rider!! WELL over 20,000 posts!!! Holy crap!

[Rye]

Science gave us the ability to kill faster and more efficiently than ever before. There's no religion with rules so impacting they'll prevent a dedicated asshole from doing bad shit, so certainly, it's not responsible when someone does something for ulterior motives.

However, a lot of bad actions can be at least partially caused by the religions (or any ideology) involved. Modern suicide bombing as a terror tactic was started by marxists in the east, according to a documentary I saw on it. The groupthink that praises adherence to the concept over rational discourse is primarily to blame, and to be entirely fair, religions HAVE to praise that because they're so demonstratably irrational.

Faiths that revere religiosity over sense (how common it is, i don't know) will always produce monstrous results. That's why any highly religious (or otherwise similarly indoctrinated) area is shit to live in. Iran, the Southern US, North Korea, wherever. As Voltaire said, anyone that can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. The abandonment of reason and the enslavement to an idea (could be a god, political party or nation) above all else is extremely dangerous and will logically express itself as crusades, suicide bombing, poison gas attacks given enough time and resources.

[Guardsman Bass]

From what I've read, science allowed for a great deal of more efficient killing, and the like, but in of itself, did not cause that kind of killing. It's like criticizing water for 'giving us a higher population.'

Religion, on the other hand - and particularly traditional christianity- actually is a war starter, not just a tool for an end.

[Chris OFarrell]

Science is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The holocaust was caused by Religious/nationalist insanity. Was has been around a long as Man has, be in with sticks and stones or tanks....

Science is neutral. The motives people have to use it might not be...but the science itself is neither inherently good or bad. It just is and always has been, we just discover it as human knowedge grows.

[Magnetic]

Science is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

The holocaust was caused by Religious/nationalist insanity. Was has been around a long as Man has, be in with sticks and stones or tanks....

Science is neutral. The motives people have to use it might not be...but the science itself is neither inherently good or bad. It just is and always has been, we just discover it as human knowedge grows.

Hey, I love your Avatar. One of my more favorite Stargate episodes.

[speaker-to-trolls]

Scientific advances have given us the technology to kill more people more efficiently than we could do in the past, but history shows us that our inclination to do so hasn't changed because of science (I believe Julius Caesar bragged about killing 2 million people in his Gallic campaigns). Religion, or at least mutually exclusive, aggressive missionary religions like Christianity and Islam, encourage this inclination by creating another tribal boundary and another reason to hate a certain group. In the past and in a worryingly large number of cases today they go as far as to tell their followers "anyone not in our over-tribe isn't just our enemy, they're Gods enemy, ergo they are an enemy of the universe itself and all that is good, ergo we cannot allow them to exist"

[wolveraptor]

The difference in that respect between science and religion is that science can be used to facillitate massacres, while religion can be used to justify them (according to certain sytems of morality). This is what makes religion more culpable for things such as the Holocaust than the science that brought machine guns and the like.

[R. U. Serious]

We've seen the argument trotted out many times during anti religious debates "Religion bought us Crusades, Inquisition, etc."

Now my question is one of turning the argument around and asking how is that different than saying "Science bought us the holocaust, Industrialized War and Dehumanization of man."

Simple: science is not an ideology. Science does not say what is and isn't morally correct; it only says what is and isn't objectively accurate.

Strave, see the "contributing factor" of Science and Religion to those desasters is very diferent. While it is true, that without science we wouldn't have had atomic bombs or Zyklon-B etc., those were mere tools, and neither sicence nor the tools affected people to use them in one way or another.

With Religion it's different, IMHO more difficult. Religion does get instrumentalized a lot as well. I don't think it's fair to characterize Religion in general in such a way that it causes the above. I think that responsibility always rests in the people that are acting and what they choose to believe in. Non-religious ideologies in the 20th century have demonstrated, that the "same kind of" atrocities work in much the same way, without an explicit religious component.

I think this post in the disucssion of whether atheism is a religion makes a good point:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... 01#2057101

I think when it comes to the great human atrocities, it is the 4th definition of religion/religiously that play a major rule:

A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.

Not the fact that you believe in an afterlive or in a deity.


But as for your original question this doesn't play a role. "Science" plays in an entirely different and unrelated category than "Religion" or "Ideologies".[/b]

[Darth Wong]

By the way, it's worth noting that while science has created the ultimate killing machines in nuclear weapons, one of the highest known rates of killing on record was the recent Rwandan genocide, committed largely with machetes, torches, and rocks. It easily exceeded the kill rate (expressed in terms of deaths per month) of the famed Nazi death camps, for example.

Ultimately, hate itself is still the greatest killer.

[SWPIGWANG]

meh, I say we blame human existence for death. No man, no problem.

This sort of non-argument don't really call for a real argument to counter it. Now if the actual links are formed where one shows that such death would not have been the case if science did not exist, than we have an argument. The original post in the op is on the level "since arms and hands are used to weild weapons to kill people, it is the arm's fault that wars begin"

I don't know how do you assign blame to non-human entities anyways....

[Magnetic]

By the way, it's worth noting that while science has created the ultimate killing machines in nuclear weapons, one of the highest known rates of killing on record was the recent Rwandan genocide, committed largely with machetes, torches, and rocks. It easily exceeded the kill rate (expressed in terms of deaths per month) of the famed Nazi death camps, for example.

Ultimately, hate itself is still the greatest killer.

That would pretty much sum it up. I find it amazing that in the 21st century, there is still so much "childish playground" behavior from so many of the worlds leaders. I'd say that most of them are a bunch of selfish jerks.

[Lord Zentei]

See now I disagree with most of the board about this. I believe that any belief system, when taken in under its broadest umbbrella, is, as the title suggests, only as good as the people underneath it.

<snip>

I want to make the difference between moral system and belief system. Not every Christian has the same moral system - there are Situation Ethicists, there are those that follow Natural Law and there are Biblical literalists. They share a belief system but not a morality system.

I make this distincation because I would not argue that humanism has the same kind of mix of ass and nice. I would however be willing to suggest, though I do not have the backing but I decided to wait to see if anyone bothered to challenge me on it first, that there would be the best and the worst of humanity in atheism which I believe to be a belief system, but not a morality system.

If you trot forwards examples of people who act morally allegedly because of their faith, I could just as easily trot forwards examples of people who act like assholes for the same reason.

Moreover, by distinguishing between beleif system and moral system and arguing that a beleif system is only as good as the people under it, then, at the very least, the beleif systems as such fail to cause people to act in a more moral way, which is one of their vaunted purposes. Moreover, the claim that the true motivation of the "Good Christians" and "Good Muslims" is their faith as opposed to their benevolant personality becomes suspect.

[Gil Hamilton]

I suppose you could say that the holocausts are the end result of the cross between regilion and Enlightenment. What caused that was old religious hatreds that have existed in Germany forever combined with the notion that you can socially engineer your way a better society by pruning out "undesired elements" (the Holocausts being an extreme example of the idea, like eugenics in which it was born from). The Enlightenment idea of Utopia isn't science nor is the age old German tradition of not being friendly towards Jews or Gypsies or whatever.

Industrialized Warfare isn't sciences fault either. Science provided the machines and armaments, but it didn't cause the wars or the philosophies that triggered them. Pointing to all the deaths better and better weapons have accrued seems like blaming the symptom, rather than the cause. The cause is people, not the weapons they employ.

As for the "dehumanization of man"... well, I'm not entirely sure what that means exactly, to be honest, or what you are getting at. Science hasn't made us any less human. At best, it allows us to understand better what exactly it means to be human, even by reflection.

[Spoonist]

The "dehumanization of man" argument is a totall moot point. It has at its base the belief that man was nicer to eachother before science, which is bullshit.
Man has never been nicer to eachother than they are now. That is because of the scientific understanding of society and the scientific means for communication which is unparalleled in human history. The lack of education and experience of other cultures used to make man live their whole lives un the maturity level of teenagers today. Education and the mixing of cultures is now at a stage where something as common as racism is starting to be considered immoral, something which a 100-200 years ago was normal practice in all cultures.
It also used to be normal and totally OK to kill, plunder and rape as long as you didn't do it within your own society and slavery has been an integral part of most 'grand' civilizations.
Today most people can recognize these things for morally wrong and most people strive not to cross the line of what is morally wrong.

And all this is brought at a faster pace than ever before thanks to the best meme so far; scientific theory and testing.
Compared to historical memes like religion there is simply no comparison.