Re: Study ... atheist countries are more peaceful

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

This should be no surprise to anyone ...

http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/06/ ... ceful.html



.

[Ayreon]

There is alot more info than this. I would look around for more info, because this topic looks rather empty

[Godschild]

What about Hitlers Germany where millions were murdered in concentration camps and many millions more died putting a stop to this madman.All this because he wanted to engineer a super race and he got the idea because of his belief in Darwin.
Stalins Soviet Union was worse millions upon millions were murdered because he and those that followed him distrusted or hated different groups of people.
Does this make any sense,only when you believe that human beings are nothing but advanced amoeba.
I can give you many more examples but this should be horrifing enough.

[JillSwift]

What about Hitlers Germany where millions were murdered in concentration camps and many millions more died putting a stop to this madman.All this because he wanted to engineer a super race and he got the idea because of his belief in Darwin.
Stalins Soviet Union was worse millions upon millions were murdered because he and those that followed him distrusted or hated different groups of people.
Does this make any sense,only when you believe that human beings are nothing but advanced amoeba.
I can give you many more examples but this should be horrifing enough.

This old and rusty argument is simplistic to the point of utter inanity.

Hitler's Third Rich was religious: "Gott mit uns!" The "Master Race" was a by-product not of a belief in evolution, but in the belief that Aryans were more directly descended from Adam and thus closer to god where other races, being darker skinned, were obviously struck with the "curse of Canaan" and thus inferior.

Stalin's communist Russia was based not on atheism but instead on a dogmatic approach to socialist values. Dogma, being unquestionable, is the very road to disaster. Even if Stalin had allowed religion to compete, he would have still ended up killing millions.

Try building a real argument rather than spouting rhetoric like "advanced amoeba".

[Sophus]

What about Hitlers Germany where millions were murdered in concentration camps and many millions more died putting a stop to this madman.All this because he wanted to engineer a super race and he got the idea because of his belief in Darwin.
Stalins Soviet Union was worse millions upon millions were murdered because he and those that followed him distrusted or hated different groups of people.
Does this make any sense,only when you believe that human beings are nothing but advanced amoeba.
I can give you many more examples but this should be horrifing enough.

Seriously you should have used Stalin. Hitler was a deeply religious Roman Catholic.

[VietnamVet-BRIGHT]

There is alot more info than this. I would look around for more info, because this topic looks rather empty

Maybe I should have made the link to the story more apparent in my OP ... here it is again:

http://bhascience.blogspot.com/2009/06/ ... ceful.html

.

[Tom62]

I think that violence and crime has more to to with poverty, education, sense of security, living in comfort, culture and well-being of the people in a country than with religion. Norway is the most peaceful country in the world, because the people there are very content, there is barely any poverty, the standard of living and education is very high and people don't feel oppressed. I truly love that country (been there twice), it is beautiful and the people there are very friendly and happy. Because of this sense of well-being, there is practically no need for Norwegians to become violent or lead a life of crime.

It is funny that Godschild used the old cliche that Germany under Hitler was an atheist state. Nothing is more further from the truth. Without the support of the Christian population, Hitler would never been able to gain any power. It was the evangelical church in Germany (and later the Catholic Church as well) who was behind the success of his politics. The church considered him the savior of all Christian believes, who would eradicate the evil Jewish conspiracy against mankind (and Christianity in special) and who would support the true Faith by eliminating Christian heretics (like Jehovah Witnesses and other obscure Christian sects) . With other words, Hitler's Germany was a tyrannical Christian nation.

[PipeBox]

And it just so happens that those that have the luxury of more time to think, as well as more freedom to explore their thoughts and act on them, are more often atheists.  I don't think that importing a bunch of atheists to countries in Africa and the Middle East will crank up the average intelligence (more than a little, I mean) and lower poverty and violent crime.  I do think that if those countries were better off, there'd be more atheists.  Not because of that old cliche, that those in trouble need faith (which may even be true, courtesy of evolution), but because those not in trouble can actually think about whether their appeals to the heavens or simplistic explanations for unanswered questions are really likely to be functional (in the sense they believe they are).

[Guest]

What about Hitlers Germany where millions were murdered in concentration camps and many millions more died putting a stop to this madman.All this because he wanted to engineer a super race and he got the idea because of his belief in Darwin.

I just wanted to add something to this, there was some good replies already. The idea of a super race and especially superman (Ãœbermensch) came from Nietzsche, but like everything in Nazi Germany ideology, it was badly misused. Nietzsche's sister was the holder of his estate at the time, and was a prominent nazi. She used her brothers writings as a part of the party's propaganda, but in a way that would have frightened Nietzsche! He did not think that anybody could have been the superman, rather it was meant to be only a philosophical idea. Source for this is a documentary I saw a couple of years ago.

And it just so happens that those that have the luxury of more time to think, as well as more freedom to explore their thoughts and act on them, are more often atheists.  I don't think that importing a bunch of atheists to countries in Africa and the Middle East will crank up the average intelligence (more than a little, I mean) and lower poverty and violent crime.  I do think that if those countries were better off, there'd be more atheists.  Not because of that old cliche, that those in trouble need faith (which may even be true, courtesy of evolution), but because those not in trouble can actually think about whether their appeals to the heavens or simplistic explanations for unanswered questions are really likely to be functional (in the sense they believe they are).

Yeah, it's an old cliche, because it can be found from the Bible!

[Kylyssa]

All this because he wanted to engineer a super race and he got the idea because of his belief in Darwin.

Another person mistaking Social Darwinism for evolution.  Actually, Social Darwinism was  created by a group of religious folks who perverted the words used by people (not even Darwin) to describe the process of evolution - survival of the fittest.  They perverted Darwin's theory of evolution to support a social policy.  Creation's Ladder bears more relationship to Social Darwinism than evolution does.

Creation's Ladder is the Christian concept explaining the different species as trains of thought in god's mind.  It places lions at the top of the animal ladder and kings at the top of the human ladder.  The idea is that each person, from kings to nobility, to wealthy people, to poor people, to beggars, to a hierarchy of races puts each person in their place by birth, by god's choice.  Creation's Ladder was a view that allowed people to justify oppression by the rich and later Social Darwinism.  Herbert Spencer was the founder of the Social Darwinist movement and he received support from many religious quarters as his theory of Social Darwinism fit perfectly with their views.  

In America, most Social Darwinists are religiously conservative.  But most people who think evolution happened are not Social Darwinists.  That's because Social Darwinism bears as much relation to the theory of evolution as child molestation bears to making love.  Social Darwinism also holds as much in common with the theory of evolution as the Inquisition held to the words of Jesus Christ.

[Kylyssa]

I think religion is the product of suffering, ignorance, and poverty.  If we can alleviate suffering, ignorance, and poverty we'll lessen both crime and religion.

[curiosityandthecat]

I think religion is the product of suffering, ignorance, and poverty.  If we can alleviate suffering, ignorance, and poverty we'll lessen both crime and religion.

Or if we rid ourselves of religion and crime, we'll alleviate suffering, ignorance and poverty.  

[Godschild]

I'm not going to argue about Hitler except to say he was not a christians he was a deviant,murderer,thief and most anything else horrible you can think of.The church in Germany at that time was dead wrong in their thinking the Bible never has taught to eliminate the Jewish people and just to be correct the Jewish people are to be supported by the christian church.Why did you ignore Stalin?What about China,North Korea,Cambodia.Now I will agree that religion has contributed to many terrible events down through history 911 is one that hits close to home and the heart and even the christian church has contributed its share.True christian teaching does not promote violence.The teachings of Jesus are of peace,love,charity and so forth and so on.

[Whitney]

What about China,North Korea,Cambodia.

Why don't you read the study in the OP before responding?

[Will]

I'm not going to argue about Hitler except to say he was not a christians he was a deviant,murderer,thief and most anything else horrible you can think of.

Christians are incapable of murder? Thievery? Come on, that's just silly. Religion or lack of religion cannot possibly make one immune to being destructive. Some Christians are murderers and some are thieves. Adolph Hitler believed in the divinity of Jesus Christ. He believed in the remission of sins. He was, by definition, a Christian. Does that mean that you, as  Christian, share in the responsibility for WWII or the Holocaust? Of course not. Your faith is your own, and it's up to you to make good decisions and be a "good" person.

The church in Germany at that time was dead wrong in their thinking the Bible never has taught to eliminate the Jewish people and just to be correct the Jewish people are to be supported by the christian church.

Pretend that you dislike Jews. Now read Matthew 23.

Why did you ignore Stalin? What about China, North Korea, Cambodia? Now I will agree that religion has contributed to many terrible events down through history 9/11 is one that hits close to home and the heart and even the christian church has contributed its share. True christian teaching does not promote violence. The teachings of Jesus are of peace, love, charity and so forth and so on.

This seems like a no true Scotsman fallacy. Some of the Bible teaches peace and some of it teaches violence, hatred, and murder. You certainly cannot deny this.