>religion causes all wars and if we didn't have religion the world would magically be this utopian society
Why are there people who unironically think this?
>>577474
>Why are there people who unironically think this?
No one does.
Do you want to know why you think that some people think this?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-echochambers-28537149
>>577474
Well without religious wars the world would undoubtedly be a better place.
>>577501
I've literally heard real people say this IRL, though. Have you never been to college?
>>577504
People would find another reason.
Why?
To see what it would be like, I imagine.
Do you have any examples of societies run completely barren of religion or belief outside of logic/ scientific reasoning?
I don't mean subsets like academia and such, has to be a fully working, organized area that sustains itself for food and energy, protection, etc.
>>577501
What are you implying?
>>577474
I think at least some of the blame has to lie with a certain species of very talkative theist. The ones who can't take a shit without thanking God for toilet paper, you know them. If you see enough of them, you'd easily begin to suspect that most people, everywhere in the world, are mostly motivated by religious ideas.
People have difficulty accepting that the ones they hear the most of are indeed the noisy ones, hence I can't say "I'm an atheist" here without getting a fedora tipped at me, because there's a lot of people whose predominant experience of atheists has been with the noisy ones.
>>577546
That religious people often seem to have problems distinguishing between reality and fantasy.
You notice it all the time.
>>577541
>Do you have any examples of societies run completely barren of religion or belief outside of logic/ scientific reasoning?
>I don't mean subsets like academia and such, has to be a fully working, organized area that sustains itself for food and energy, protection, etc.
That's the thing, no such society exists that is devoid of belief. Also if you want to get all autistically epistemological you could claim that all knowledge relies on some belief and that logic itself requires a belief that it works for it to function.
>>577576
>if you want to get all
I didn't. Good strawman, though.
I said belief outside of logic or scientific reasoning. Did you not thoroughly read my post?
We know no such society exists. If it did, every "fedora" would move there and "laugh as you all wallow in your stupidity".
Yes? I believe I'm playing this correctly, and no, I don't have to rationalize in my head why I'm thinking in order to do so. This is the point where I call you a sperg, right?
>>577501
>No one does.
reddit.com/r/atheism
>>577612
fair enough.
>>577622
Yay.
/thread
>>577501
I was literally told by at least three people to my face "Without religion, there would be no wars."
>>577553
>Of course not … but I am told it works even if you don't believe in it.
- Niels Bohr
>>577642
Years ago (when I was an atheist myself), I was in my Comparative Theology class in school, and a known militant atheist started ranting on this subject.
About half the class agreed with him before I brought their attention to the glaring reality that their are and will always be conflicts over anything, and that religion was just one of many excuses used to subjugate other humans.
I had to explain the League of Militant Atheists, the killing of religious civilians under the Soviet Union; as well as the mass killings of religious civilians in the "Cultural Revolution" in China. No one had even entertained these historical facts prior to that, and my opponent (falsely) claimed that they had nothing to do with atheism.
It's a very facile view to have, and it is especially becoming more common. A stellar example of reductionist historiography conveniently omitting historical events to shoehorn an agenda. I think they get it from the countless brazenly atheist "comedians" in the media, it seems very popular.
>>577501
People actually do say and believe that shit.
Most popular being C. Hitchens.
He attributed all the evils done in the name of religion to religion and implied that had there been no religion these things wouldn't have happened.
>>577709
Here is exactly what I am talking about.
You cannot find me one single time that Hitchens ever, ever said without religion there would be no wars.
You are all misunderstanding people and making up shit in your own heads.
>>577678
>things that never happened
Cool story bro.
>>577726
Now that I'm quite a bit older, I can produce the goods in such a way that no amount of "studying logical fallacies" can save fedoras from being pushed into them.
They have to resort to debating about metaphysics, which their ideology claims don't exist.
The zealously faithful idiot meme is failing.
>>577747
I like the way you pretended you used to be an atheist and now you are claiming atheism is an "ideology" that says "metaphysics doesn't exist".
At least try and make the porkie pies you are telling convincing, there's a good chap.
>>577778
I was staunchly atheist at the time, just not a fedora.
Just admit that fedora atheism is contradictory, you'll feel better about yourself.
>>577802
>fedora atheism
>>577813
New Atheism :^)
>No one says that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVg2EJvvlF8
>>577849
>current year meme
Okay, dear, you know where you are supposed to be.
>>577878
>being a whig faggot
Young people always do and think silly things. This includes believing that the world would be a utopia if only no-one ever disagreed with them.
Luckily most people grow out of that.
>>577874
>Lennon literally says religion is the cause of all wars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>he never mentions anything else!!!!!!!!!
>nothing about possessions or countries!!!!!
>he never says we need a brotherhood of man!!!!!
>it's just all about religion and how it causes all wars!!!!
Wow you people are thick.
magine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
>>577887
Ha ha, you're that little kid who calls everyone whigs, brilliant.
I'm laughing so hard. That made my night.
>>577897
It's, like, whole first verse:
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Any way, my point is, the idea of religion causing violence is quite popular, people do tend to overstate the importance of religion in history and modern world.
>>577916
Here's the problem.
A lot us think that religion contributes to violence in the world. I agree with that. I don't think you can really refute that, just look at ISIS for example.
Transforming it into the enormous, clunking strawman "atheists say religion causes ALL wars" is the issue. Literally no one says that, not Lennon, not Hitchens, not Dawkins, no one I have ever heard of says that. I don't say that.
>>577713
He indeed did not literally say "religion caused all wars", which was a stupid fucking slip of the word by OP I assume. What OP really was refering to was how people fail to realize that whatever was done in the name of religion is inseparable from what was done in the name of everything else ie it is inseparable from human nature.
People had wars over religion? Great. People have wars over anything.
People judged and discriminated each other over religious differences? Great. People judge and discriminate over anything.
People did stupid shit because of religion? Great. People do stupid shit anyway.
That one debate between CH and Tony Blair really shined light over his short sightedness when he myopically tried to argue that every good deed done in the name of religion can be attributed simply to human nature whereas every bad deed done in the name of religion must be attributed to religion and nothing more.
Not that Blair took a better stance, because his was just the opposite of Hitchens, with trying to prove that all good under religion was due to religion and all bad under it was due to human nature.
>>577906
That wasn't me. Another poster commenting on your ludicrous assertions.
>>577952
Blair got absolutely demolished in that debate.
And what OP said is what I was arguing against and I don't buy the idea it was a 'slip'. I've seen religious people make the same identical claim loads of times and multiple of you in this thread have backed OP with you being the first person to even acknowledge the absolutely enormous distinction between atheists criticing religion for being a factor in violence in the world and religion being responsible for all violence.
And that distinction is huge, it is not some minor detail.
>>577978
>Blair got absolutely demolished in that debate.
That's simply because Hitchens is a better debater. My point about his faults still stands.
>>577545
And I have actually had those exact words said to me and when they were asked to elaborate they said: "If religion did not exist there would never have been any wars. It was all just a misunderstand anyway because everyone worships the same thing."
>>578010
But if you just want to criticise Hitchens for overstating the role of religion in war then I would have happily agreed with you in the first place, because I am honest.
This is what OP said though...
>religion causes all wars and if we didn't have religion the world would magically be this utopian society
>Why are there people who unironically think this?
But hey at least we seem to be clearing up some misconceptions here ;-)
>>578030
Oh okay.
So long as we are basing this on your anecdotes about a conversation you apparently had.
I've never heard 1 person say that. g'day
>>578040
He said I probably misunderstood them. I was pointing out that I didn't.
If you don't like that, that's fine, just don't make gross generalizations and assumptions based on your own flawed idea that a portion of the atheistic population doesn't believe that the world would be better and without war without religions.
Some of them absolutely do.
>>578058
I think it highly likely that you did misunderstand them or have an unrelible to be completely honest familia.
>>577474
Because we look past language barriers and skin colors like fucking champs
>>578061
*unreliable memory
>>578061
You're right, I forgot that atheism is a religion.
>>578072
>atheism is a religion.
Right. So now you want to be deliberately silly about something else, well I'm not biting.
Since we've happily established that no one has any basis for OP's claim, other than "a conversation I had in college" or similar. Then I am happy to chuck in my own anecdote of having lived for years in a country where a huge chunk of the population is atheist and have heard no one say that ever.
I've cleared up a misconception I hope and unless we have some citations of anyone of significance saying anything remotely similar to what OP has said I will leave it at that.
>>577943
ISIS would just become a Arab nationalism without Islam. Majority of these terror groups are working for political gains first and religious ones as an aftermath of their gains.
>>578089
We gave you John Lemon you stupid fuck.
>>577474
People cause wars not books
>>577943
> A lot us think that religion contributes to violence in the world. I agree with that. I don't think you can really refute that, just look at ISIS for example.
That's a bullshit argument on par with claiming that the presence of guns contributes to violence. Religion is just another rhetorical club to bash your enemies over the head with, it's not like the secular regimes of the Middle East were peace loving humanitarians.
>>577474
you need to have that easy-to-attack boogeyman
>>577474
It's the same bullshit people like to masturbate about their tribalism.
"Oh, if only all the people were born again children of God, people would be altruistic, hardworking good people leading holy lives"
"Oh, if only we were all socialists, we would all be like Sweden"
"Oh, if we were all free market capitalists, we would live in a awesome society of uber-wealth for everyone"
"Oh, if we were all (insert job here), we would get shit done and fix this planet"
>>578307
So, basically humans being tribalistic assholes(and THAT'S the reason for all wars)
Also, to all of those going "no one has ever argued that", google the sentence. You will get tons of results.
>>578152
Borders are religions.
>>577551
This chart kind of sais a lot.
Keep in mind that the authors of the chart had 5 criteria a war would need to have to be a considered a religous war, so the thing is debatable.
>>578429
For the authors see: Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars
>>578429
>>578439
The main point they make is that religion plays a role in a lot of wars, it is an easy way to make people enthousiastic for the war, but in most conflicts religion only starts playing a role until after the war has been declared. Like the both the French and English claiming they were fighting for god in the 100 year war, religion played a part in that war, that did not make it a religious one.
>>578459
Invoking concepts is easy. Or does not everyone justify themselves as freedom-fighters and liberators, bringing freedom and democracy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1TWZ6u0YLk
>>578429
Congratulations.
Using the most deliberately biased source you could possibly find you have still proven that religion causes some wars and you have done, nothing, nothing at all to prove the claim that anyone of any significance claims that all wars would end if people stopped being religious.
Hasn't dawkins said something along these lines, not that there would be no wars but that religion was responsible for many of the wars that have taken place?
Religion is responsible for all wars. Without belief in an afterlife no one would be willing to die for shit and war wouldn't even be a thing.
