Tell y'all what: We'll accept responsibility for Breivik if you take Stalin. No? I've seen people avoid this by trying to say blame Stalin's religious upbringing and not his atheism. So what about Breivik's atheism?
I'm not going to pretend I'm a very religious person as that would be a lie. I've always been very pragmatic and influenced by my secular surroundings and environment. In the past, I remember I used to think;
"Religion is a crutch for weak people. What is the point in believing in a higher power if you have confidence in yourself!? Pathetic."
Perhaps this is true for many cases. Religion is a crutch for many weak people and many embrace religion for self serving reasons as a source for drawing mental strength (to feed their weak emotional state f example during illness, death, poverty etc.). Since I am not a hypocrite, I'll say directly that this is my agenda as well.
If you will not accept Breivik's atheism, how can you accept Stalin's Christianity? Anyone who claims to follow Christ and murders other people is just as hypocritical as one who would think that Biblical Christianity is anything prescriptive about what Breivik did. Truly pathetic on both counts.
Debunking Christianity: A glimpse into the deranged mind of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik
A couple point. First, placing blame on Christianity does not equate to "throw[ing] all Christians under the bus." No more so than stating that Islamic beliefs played a roll in the September 11th attacks is throwing all Muslims under the bus.
ReplyDeleteAnd second, I see a lot of apologists assert that atheism was responsible for the horrors of the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia, but I never see anyone actually link atheism to what happened there. As I'm sure you are aware, correlation does not equal causation. One must look at all the other factors these states shared, (hint hint, totalitarianism and communism) to be able to make an informed argument as to the cause. If one were to make the case that these types of crimes against humanity were actually the result of atheism in isolation, one would need to explain how it is that the same types of crimes also occur in explicitly Christian nations throughout our history.
As for Brievik, it would seem EVERYONE is jumping the gun on his motives, from Vox Day and Glenn Beck on the right and PZ and John Loftus on the left (I actually have no idea what political affilation Loftus is, right/left). His actions seem politically motivated at the core, not religious. Now that's not to say that some form of modern Nordic right wing Christianity might not play a role in that political ideology. Very few things, if anything, happen in isolation.
So you agree with me and disagree with John Loftus. You agree that Brievik was not religiously motivated.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand you can't possible be naive enough to think that some people don't make the same separation you did in the first paragraph of your comment. You also must be aware that I was agreeing that it's wrong to make such as a simplistic correlation right?
Fair enough, but that's not the position you've taken previously.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure what you mean. If you think that then you have always misunderstood me.
ReplyDelete