So, religion doesn't kill people; people kill people...?
-----Original Message-----
From: James Guinee [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 3:12 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences
Subject: Re: IQ
> >> Try religion.
> >>
> >> Rick
> >Jim:
> >Do you have any empirical data to demonstrate this?
> Rick:
> Try the Inquisitions, the Crusades
Would it be more accurate to blame bad religion than religion in general?
Did these individuals follow the tenets of their religion, or ignore them
and that's where the trouble started?
> Rick:
> the slaughter of Christians
> by the Romans
Of course we can always find examples of instititutional harm
Mothers may be more likely to abuse their children than any other
group but do we eliminate motherhood?
> the religious wars of Persia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt (to
> name a few), human sacrifice (in many religions), etc. And those are
> just quick examples off the top of my head.
Not being the historian you are I would ask the same question -- is
this religion taken to its logical conclusion, or religion used to justify
something that is inconsistent with that religion?
> Rick:
> You could even consider the Black Death to be indirectly caused
> by religion in that cats were killed by the religious as they were
> believed to be "Servants of Satan," and as a consequence the rat
> populations of Europe ran rampart and spread the plague.
I've read that this exacerbated the problem, as opposed to causing it
Further, this if true is my point about bad religion. I am unaware of any
scriptural tenet or early church tradition that would justify such foolishness.
But it seems to have run rampant during this period.
> Rick:
> Sounds like empirical data to me.
Sure. And women who cohabit instead of marry are more likely to be
victims of domestic violence.
Should we discourage this practice on the basis of such data?
>> Jim:
> >Perhaps it's just people who want to kill and will justify the strongest
> >political/cultural/religious reasons to do it.
> Rick:
> If a person is killed because he doesn't accept the religious
> beliefs of another, it doesn't matter if that killing is "justified" by
> the religious reasons or not--the fact remains that it resulted directly
> from religious belief and thus was the direct result of religion.
But when you have scores of people who DON'T kill and they adhere
to that same ideology it is better to examine the individual circumstances
than to boorishy blame religion.
> Rick:
> Sorry, Jim. I'm not attacking religion, but the fact remains that
> religion HAS resulted in more deaths by violence than any other single
> cause.
Jim:
You haven't demonstrated that. You've given your opinion.
Let's examine the 20th century -- the bloodiest of all centuries, and look
at how many people died as a result of non-religious rationale.
************************************************************************
Jim Guinee, Ph.D.
Director of Training & Adjunct Professor
University of Central Arkansas Counseling Center
313 Bernard Hall Conway, AR 72035 USA
"Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a
Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when
we're only talking about it." ... Charles F. Banning
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