Re: IQ

[Rick Adams]

James Guinee wrote:

Rick:
Try the Inquisitions, the Crusades
   

Would it be more accurate to blame bad religion than religion in general?
 

      Perhaps, but then you reach the problem of who gets to define 
"bad" religion. For example, you and I can obviously agree that the 
wholesale slaughter that came out of the Inquisitions and the Crusades 
were wrong--but had we lived at the time, and of course been devout 
Christians who accepted the Pope as the ultimate religious authority, 
wouldn't we have defined those acts as justified or even "good?"

Did these individuals follow the tenets of their religion, or ignore them
and that's where the trouble started?
 

      Which tenets? The Bible has existed in several translations, and 
several versions. In addition, a great deal of it consists of material 
that is subject to a very wide range of interpretations. Today, we might 
give one interpretation to a passage while at the time a very different 
one was considered proper doctrain.

Rick:
the slaughter of Christians 
by the Romans
   

Of course we can always find examples of instititutional harm
 

      But isn't that my point exactly? If we accept organized religion 
as an institution (which, of course, is entirely appropriate), then the 
fact that the institution has inspired harm supports, rather than 
contradicts, my points.

Mothers may be more likely to abuse their children than any other
group but do we eliminate motherhood?
 

      Actually, stepfathers are in terms of per capita abuse (although 
that is due, in part, to the higher rate of sexual abuse which increases 
the overall abuse rate), but your point is clear.

      Do we eliminate motherhood? No, since that would also eliminate 
children, thus defeating the point. Instead we attempt to educate women 
as to the appropriate child-rearing techniques and use legal means to 
protect children from at keast the most severe forms of abuse.

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?
 

      I'm hardly an historian. If anything, Louis would be the best 
person in this list to comment on this area--his expertise is far more 
sophisticated in this regard than mine.

      Whether it is religion taken to its logical conclusion, or 
religion used to justify behavior isn't the issue, however. The key 
issue is whether or not religion--by its existance alone--has been the 
source of excessive violence. and whether that violence would have 
occured in equal measure if the religion had not existed in the first 
place. I would hold that it is the existance of religion--and the sense 
of "righteousness" it universally inspires that is the problem, not its 
use to justify behavior.

I've read that this exacerbated the problem, as opposed to causing it
 

      I'll agree with that.

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.
 

      Try the Malleus Malificarium, or the "Witches Hammer," written by 
Pope Honorous [sp?]. It was issued under papal authority and defined the 
characteristics of a heretic or a witch--including direct injunctions 
against cats. Other, similar, injunctions existed as well.

      To us it is foolishness. But to a middle ages merchant the 
concept that something so small that it was impossible to see with the 
naked eye (a bacteria) could be responsible for such disasters would 
have seemed equally foolish.

But it seems to have run rampant during this period.
 

      During many periods--in some aspects including the modern era. 
Consider Fundamentalist Islamic Terrorism, calls by conservative 
Christian groups for severe punishment for violations of "morals" laws 
that don't harm non-consenting individuals, etc.

Rick:
Sounds like empirical data to me.
   

Sure.  And women who cohabit instead of marry are more likely to be
victims of domestic violence.
 

      Really?

      I'd be interested in seeing the sources for that statement. Many 
of the studies I've read (the Boston Study, etc.) indicate that while 
women who are unmarried are more likely to _report_ domestic violence, 
it is equally prevelant in marital relationships. I know we have some 
feminist psychological scholars on this list, perhaps one of them could 
offer some insight into this area.

Should we discourage this practice on the basis of such data?
 

      No--but most conservative Christian groups try very hard to 
discourage the practice on religious grounds.

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.
 

      If that is the case, and if the ideology is, in fact, identical, 
then you're right. But religious belief is subject to interpretation, 
not a set of absolute rules. How it is interpreted becomes the issue 
here, not whether an individual chooses to use religion as an excuse for 
violence.

      Todays churches (with some exceptions) teach that violence is 
wrong. Yet not only has this not always been the case, but even today 
exceptions are made. How many religious groups support our participation 
in wars such as the Invasion of Iraq? War, by definition, is organized 
homicide--yet it is not only condoned, it is glorified in many 
religions. Even Christianity isn't immune from this effect, as both the 
Old Testament and the support of churches for popular wars clearly 
demonstrates. Perhaps, as you claim, that is a misinterpretation of the 
core values of the religion (although enough Biblical examples exist to 
refute that point), but even if that's true, it's still ultimately 
attributable to the existance of the religion in the first place.

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.
 

      No, actually, I've demonstrated it. The historical examples alone 
make that quite clear.

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.
 

      Let's see:

      The Holocaust--hatred of the Jews (religiously based).
      The killing of Buddhist monks and nuns in Tibet by the Chinese 
(religiously based).
      9-11 (Islamic Fundamentalism).
      Mass killings of Christians in the USSR (by Stalin) and in China 
(by Mao) (religiously based hatred).
      All wars involving Israel (religiously based)
      The Iraq/Iran war (Shite versus Sunni Muslim religious war).
      Many tribal wars in Africa (based on differing religions).

      Hmmmmmmmmmm . . .

      Rick <who hopes some psychological discourse will enter the 
thread soon since this is getting very off topic>

--

Rick Adams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"... and the only measure of your worth and your deeds will be the love you leave behind when you're gone." 

-Fred Small, J.D., "Everything Possible"



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