Tuesday, October 2, 2007 | Reason : Commentary | print version

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Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

by Richard Dawkins

Reposted from:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/richard_dawkins/2007/10/for_good_people_to_go_evil_thi.html

Nobody is suggesting that all religious people are violent, intolerant, racist, bigoted, contemptuous of women and so on. It would be absurd to suggest such a thing: just as absurd as to generalize about all atheists. I am not even concerned with statistical generalizations about the majority of religious people (or atheists). My concern here is over whether there is any general reason why religion might be more or less likely to bias individuals towards all those unpleasant things in Christopher Hitchens's list: to make them more likely to exhibit them than they would have been without religion. I think the answer is yes.

Religion changes, for people, the definition of good. Atheists and humanists tend to define good and bad deeds in terms of the welfare and suffering of others. Murder, torture, and cruelty are bad because they cause people to suffer. Most religious people think them bad, too, but some religions (for example the religion of the Taliban) sanction all of them under some circumstances. For non-religious people, the behavior of consenting adults in a private bedroom is the business of nobody else, and is not bad unless it causes suffering — for example by breaking up a happy family. But many religions arrogate to themselves the right to decide that certain kinds of sexual behavior, even if they do no harm to anyone, are wrong.

The actions of the Taliban, their vile bullying of women, their sanctimonious hatred of all that might lead to enjoyment, their violence, their ignorant bigotry, their hatred of education, their cruelty, seem to me to be as close to pure evil as anything I can imagine. Yet, by the lights of their own religion they are supremely righteous — really good people.

The nineteen men of 9/11, having washed, perfumed themselves and shaved their whole bodies in preparation for the martyr's paradise, believed they were performing the highest religious duty. By the lights of their religion they were as good as it is possible to be. They were not poor, downtrodden, oppressed or psychotic; they were well educated, sane and well balanced, and, as they thought, supremely good. But they were religious, and that provided all the justification they needed to murder and destroy. Their madrassas and their mullahs had given them good reason to think they were on a fast track to paradise.

Polls suggest that 13% of British Muslims regard the 7/7 London bombers as blessed martyrs. Neighbors and friends expressed bewilderment that such nice, gentle, kind, youth-clubbing, cricket-loving young men could do such terrible things. But once you understand what they truly and sincerely believed — that it was Allah's will that they blow up buses and subways — it becomes all too easy to understand.

It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. Of course, many evil deeds are done by individuals who happen to be atheists. But it can never be rational to say that, because of my nonbelief in religion, it would be good to be cruel, to murder, to oppress women, or to perpetrate any of the evils on the Hitchens list.

The following quotation from the Nobel prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg has become well known, but it is so devastatingly true that it is worth quoting again and again: "With or without [religion] you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

Posted: Tuesday, October 2, 2007 | Permalink

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1. Comment #75269 by Lana on October 2, 2007 at 7:52 am

That's one of the arguments I use when confronted with the "atheists have no morals" charge. If people allow some supernatural being to determine good and evil than what's to stop the being from changing his mind? People who depend on others to decide morality are dodging their responsibilities as an adult in this society.

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2. Comment #75272 by pete on October 2, 2007 at 8:05 am

I'm a little uncomfortable with the claim that there is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. It seems true enough, but only if we also accept that there is no logical path from atheism to good deeds.

Perhaps I'm interpreting "logical path" incorrectly, and maybe I get overly anxious when claims of non-existence are made. I can see how Atheism predisposes people to think more about their fellow humans, and makes plenty of arguments stronger in that direction. However, I can still imagine that there might be logically sound arguments for being a complete jerk.

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3. Comment #75273 by jonecc on October 2, 2007 at 8:05 am

The problem with religion as a basis for ethics is that the most important relationship isn't between people, but between people and the divine. This is true of religious 'moderates' as well as of 'fundamentalists'.

When the hypothesised divine will directs believers in a direction which happens to coincide with human happiness, good can result, but good could equally have resulted from a secular ethical analysis. When it directs believers the other way, the results are worse than a secular ethical analysis would have produced, because by definition secular ethics are focussed on human welfare.

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4. Comment #75274 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 8:08 am

The religious will respond, "Oh most religious people don't believe the nasty stuff in the scriptures."

Atheist response to that: If the religious are serious about that, they've got to update their holy books. They must delete the bad laws, or publish an authoritative document eschewing the bad laws.

Pete, I looked in the Big Book of Atheism, and I could find no path to evil deeds, nor could I find a path to good deeds. Damn book is hardly worth the paper it's printed on.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

5. Comment #75276 by GoneGolfing on October 2, 2007 at 8:16 am

Precisely !

Most Religionists think: " A higher power has enabled me to do this deed for the sake of my own and others good "

Most Rationalists think: " I am responsible for my own actions therefore I will, at all cost, cause as little suffering as possible in this world "

GG

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6. Comment #75277 by Coel on October 2, 2007 at 8:18 am

Pete writes:

It seems true enough, but only if we also accept that there is no logical path from atheism to good deeds.

That is true, there is indeed no logical path that leads from not-believing in gods to good deeds. There is, however, a path from our humanity and our moral instincts towards good deeds. But those things are programmed into us by evolution, they are not predicated on "not believing in gods".

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7. Comment #75278 by maton100 on October 2, 2007 at 8:19 am

The problem is that the term "atheism" comes with cultural baggage. A stigma born of ignorance and limited education. Keep in mind, it is only a word. The philosophy should be ethical materialism. By setting an example, atheism will come to represent "the person you can count on not to bullshit you in time of need." Morality must come from reason, not the whimsy of autophenomenological emotion. I'd trust Weinberg over Haggard any day.

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8. Comment #75279 by silent_brook on October 2, 2007 at 8:19 am

Pete,

There is no logical path between Atheism and "good deeds". Atheism is nothing more or less than a statement of position. One is not good because one is an atheist any more than one is bad because one is religious. Here, I believe, Dawkins is merely pointing out that religious people are already in a mindset to believe fantastical things, and can be led to do "evil things" based on their mistaken belief that they are "good."

Atheism doesn't provide any form of ethics. It is merely the position that there is no god. Therefore, our ethics must come from ourselves. Since we have well developed systems of ethics that don't rely upon fantastical claims, this is not a problem, but those ethical systems do not follow directly from Atheism.

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9. Comment #75280 by ChrisMcL on October 2, 2007 at 8:21 am

The religious would argue that atheists are moral relativists, and that that opens the logical path from atheism to evil deeds. They would continue their argument by pointing out that what Dawkins describes in his article is morality by committee. They would say that the only moral absolutes can come from god(s). ...yada yada, yawn...

The religious need to see that they themselves are moral relativists. Their beliefs about the moral teachings of their god(s) has changed over time. There are so many interpretations of the moral teachings of their god(s), even within each religion, as to make absurd their claims to moral absolutism.

Much as Democracy is not the best form of government, but rather the least worst, the utilitarianism of atheists is the least worst moral philosophy.

"If theists would be so kind as to make a short list of all the concepts of God they renounce as baldersh, we atheists would know just which topics were still on the table."
-Daniel Dennett, Breaking the Spell, pg. 211

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10. Comment #75281 by Rieux on October 2, 2007 at 8:25 am

pete (#2):

I'm a little uncomfortable with the claim that there is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. It seems true enough, but only if we also accept that there is no logical path from atheism to good deeds.

That's right; there isn't.

For every atheist in the world committing a good deed, there is something else at play besides her lack of belief in god(s). Dawkins, here, offers "the welfare and suffering of others" as matters that "tend to" matter to atheists--which is true enough. But "I lack a belief in gods" is an insufficient justification for "therefore I take action X," regardless of what X is.

(There is the minor, albeit important, point that lacking a belief in gods can lead one to avoid certain actions that are only justified by belief in god(s)--Dawkins mentions a few above--but that only weeds out a small number of options... which generally tend to be crazy stuff anyway.)

I think what's behind Weinberg's statement (by the way, I heartily recommend his book, Facing Up) is that humanity is fully capable of coming up with sufficient reasons to do good, worthwhile things without needing gods to tell us to do them. But "God says do X" is an idea that has power over plenty of people who would otherwise find X reprehensible. So the net effect, he argues, is negative. I agree.

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11. Comment #75283 by Crazymalc on October 2, 2007 at 8:27 am

There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds

Very succinct and clear. Thank you Prof. Dawkins

Comment #75274 by Dr Benway

Atheist response to that: If the religious are serious about that, they've got to update their holy books. They must delete the bad laws, or publish an authoritative document eschewing the bad laws.

Very well put Dr. Benway.

Other Comments by Crazymalc

12. Comment #75284 by Crazymalc on October 2, 2007 at 8:33 am

Comment #75279 by silent_brook

There is no logical path between Atheism and "good deeds".

I agree.

I think the best way to look at though is to start from the Secular Humanist point-of-view, which states that (according to Wiki):

Secular humanism is a humanist philosophy that upholds reason, ethics, and justice, and specifically rejects the supernatural and the spiritual as warrants of moral reflection and decision-making.

The atheism flows from this.

The moral implications etc also flow from the Secular Humanist point of view.

So, I would call myself a Secular Humanist first and an Atheist second.

Any morals I may claim to have came from the first thing, not the second. (Waves to C.S.Lewis)

It is also a useful P.O.V. as it enables to positively identify yourself, as opposed to defining yourself as something you're not ("I believe in no god").

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13. Comment #75285 by Rieux on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 am

Chris McL (#9):

The religious need to see that they themselves are moral relativists. Their beliefs about the moral teachings of their god(s) has changed over time. There are so many interpretations of the moral teachings of their god(s), even within each religion, as to make absurd their claims to moral absolutism.

Well, that doesn't really show that they're all relativists. You and I know well that they'll merely claim that All Those Other Theists just misunderstand God--so they're not relativists, they're just wrong. (This position deserves the derision from Dennett you quote, but that doesn't refute it.)

I think the more serious problem with theists who whine about atheist relativism is that they are arbitrarily presuming that God Is Right. Why? Why is a pronouncement from God necessarily The Moral Truth? Plato (and/or Socrates--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro ) saw the problems in that notion approximately 2,400 years ago; modern theists only avoid those problems by ignoring them.

I happen to think that the ethics of any all-powerful, all knowing being who created this Universe would be disgusting, so "relativism" that.

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14. Comment #75286 by Matt H. on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 am

"Polls suggest that 13% of British Muslims regard the 7/7 London bombers as blessed martyrs."

As a British atheist that scares me... 13% is a sizeable percentage, and it's simply not acceptable to have that many Muslims in our society that think its right to kill innocent people. But as Dawkins and Harris say, they aren't renegades, they are the pious ones, they are following their evil religion the way the Koran and the Hadith tells them.

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15. Comment #75289 by Richard Morgan on October 2, 2007 at 8:44 am

But they were religious, and that provided all the justification they needed to murder and destroy.

That is true, and truly frightening.
But I think that as a general rule, suicide bombers are not drawn from the educated classes. And whilst books like TGD are important, statistically the most effective weapons against fundamentalism are education and employment.
Where there is little formal education and high unemployment, there will fundamentalism thrive.
That the 9/11 assassins were well-educated is the exception rather than the rule.

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16. Comment #75291 by DantheAtheist on October 2, 2007 at 8:49 am

Good article, although I would like to have seen Christianity addressed as much as Islam was.

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17. Comment #75293 by ChrisMcL on October 2, 2007 at 8:51 am

Rieux,

Thanks for the link. I love learning about history and moral philosophy as it relates to atheism. If you [or anyone reading this] has more, please educate me.

Since reading The End of Faith nearly six months ago, I have been on a spiritual quest of sorts with regard to my atheism. I've snce read The God Delusion, God is Not Great, Breking the Spell, Why I Am Not a Christian, and selections from the works of Spinoza, Democritus, and many others.

For the first time in my 40 years on this planet, I feel very confident in my atheism. But I greatly enjoy to learn more.

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18. Comment #75294 by ChrisMcL on October 2, 2007 at 8:57 am

Richard Morgan wrote in a previous post:

"Where there is little formal education and high unemployment, there will fundamentalism thrive."

I am right there with you Richard. Time and again we see evidence that the religious will not lose thier belief even when confronted with devastating contradictory evidence of its falsity. The past 2500 years of brow-beating seems to have little effect on thiests. Atheists would do well for themselves to put their efforts into creating a more socially just world.

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19. Comment #75298 by _J_ on October 2, 2007 at 9:07 am

This article's just crying out for the disapproval of David Robertson...

It's a much less catchy soundbite, but I think the Weinberg quote would be more accurate, and less liable to incite unnecessary objections, if it finished with words along the lines of:

But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion, or a quasi-religious secular ideology.

Is there a nice, clean, simple word for 'something that generates strongly held beliefs independent of, or contrary to, the weight of evidence'?

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20. Comment #75299 by JFHalsey on October 2, 2007 at 9:10 am

I agree with everyone that athiesm, in itself, does not lead one to good or bad deeds. However, having been a fundamental theist for so long, I know what their reactions would be to that statement (that there is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds), and that is that if there is no God, if there is no Judgment and afterlife, then there is no point to anything, so why not just do whatever you want--rape, steal, murder--and then go die, because you're just going to turn back to dust and cease existing, anyway.

I'm sure you've all heard variations of the same theme; I know I said it myself, back then. I was so brainwashed to believe that meaning could only be found in God, that I literally could not imagine meaning outside of that context. What, then, would "good" and "evil" be? A theist can't even imagine that an atheist knows the difference without them being there to set out their 10 golden rules for all the poor heathens to see. The statement that atheism doesn't lead to evil is meaningless to them; nonsense.

(BTW Dan I love your avatar... is that a 4 dimensional cube?)

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21. Comment #75305 by Robert Maynard on October 2, 2007 at 9:34 am

_J_

Is there a nice, clean, simple word for 'something that generates strongly held beliefs independent of, or contrary to, the weight of evidence'?

While the other students fidget at the question, Sam Harris sits at his desk, hand stretched as high as it can reach, an aching expression of urgency written across his face.

_J_: Yes, Sam?
Sam Harris: DOGMA!

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22. Comment #75307 by jimbob on October 2, 2007 at 9:37 am

Perhaps we need to elaborate on the differences between humanistic morality and theistic morality?

Maybe a good elaboration of the former is at: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Note that this (and other) example(s) of humanistic morality allow freedom to practice religion -- but they don't say you can force it on others.

Contrast that with theistic morality whose advocates generally try to force it on everybody else.

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23. Comment #75312 by Peacebeuponme on October 2, 2007 at 9:55 am

ChrisMcL

Since reading The End of Faith nearly six months ago, I have been on a spiritual quest of sorts with regard to my atheism. I've snce read The God Delusion, God is Not Great, Breking the Spell, Why I Am Not a Christian, and selections from the works of Spinoza, Democritus, and many others.

You should read Mere Christianity, Dawkin's God and The Language of God as well. They will make you even more confident in your atheism. I'm an intellectual kitten compared to some of those on this site, but I'd feel confident in a religious debate with the esteemed fellows who wrote those books. Dawkin's God is particularly nonsensical, while Mere Christianity is just poor (and contains some of the weakest excuses fo homophobia and sexism, even if we accept the time it was written).

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24. Comment #75318 by Scep on October 2, 2007 at 10:12 am

Maybe we can all agree on:
No atheist has ever killed anyone in the name of God!

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25. Comment #75320 by SilentMike on October 2, 2007 at 10:14 am

All too true. If you believe in falsehoods a world of truble is almost certainly already heading you way.

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26. Comment #75324 by Logic and Reason on October 2, 2007 at 10:37 am

"many religions arrogate to themselves the right to decide that certain kinds of sexual behavior, even if they do no harm to anyone, are wrong."

The timing of this posting is incrediable. In the U.S. the state of Alabama just ruled against the sex toy industry. Alabama upheld the banning of all sales of sex toys in that state. This is a prime example of other peoples morals being forced upon society through the mix of religion and government. Banning sales of all sex toys!?!? Give me a break!

As a side note I would like to add that the Superior Court refused to hear the appeal so the defendant named in the case will be taking it to the Supreme Court on the basis of infringment of Constitutional rights.

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27. Comment #75332 by SilentMike on October 2, 2007 at 11:06 am

Though shalt not have fun with anything made of plastic

I Don't remember exactly which gospel that's from.

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28. Comment #75333 by jimbob on October 2, 2007 at 11:10 am

As a side note I would like to add that the Superior Court refused to hear the appeal so the defendant named in the case will be taking it to the Supreme Court on the basis of infringment of Constitutional rights.

That would be nice if you could have any confidence in the supreme court on religion-related matters -- especially since the catholic bishops just gave their annual pep talk to the 5 catholic justices:

http://hnn.us/articles/16677.html

It's time there was pressure put on justices like Scalia to recuse himself from cases influenced by church doctrine. After all, since he has freely opined that "god's law"trumps human law, he can hardly said to be unbiased.

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29. Comment #75336 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 11:20 am

Clarence Thomas will have to recuse himself as well. As a walking dildo he's got an a priori reason to oppose the banning of sex toys.

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30. Comment #75341 by ChrisMcL on October 2, 2007 at 11:22 am

Thanks for the reading suggestions, Peacebeuponme. I must confess that I envy those like yourself who are able to make it through theist philosophy books. I literally get tired while reading that BS; those books' arguments don't make sense to me. It starts to become like reading boilerplate text ("Lorem ipsum dolor...").

The most helpful book so far, in terms of helping me to understand god-belief is Breaking the Spell. I think it works because it explains religion from an atheistic (or maybe "neutral") point of view. Many years ago, I read Karen Armstrong's book, The History of God. I always thought she was an atheist. I don't understand how someone could write that book (or read it) and not come away with a healthy skepticism for contemporary monotheism.

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31. Comment #75345 by Logic and Reason on October 2, 2007 at 11:28 am

jimbob

I too am not going to hold my breath for that appeal process. I don't think the founders of the constitution ever anticipated a bunch of religious zealots gaining power in all three branches of the government. Kinda' ruins the whole checks and balances concept.

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32. Comment #75348 by Eric Blair on October 2, 2007 at 11:32 am

I have several problems with Dawkins' argument:

1 � Why doesn't he call a spade a spade and say Islam contains a logical path leading directly to evil deeds. That's his example, and he benefits from the emotive response of readers by referring to the iconic event of our time. I know there are examples from Christianity and Judaism, but they tend to water down the effect by being long past (Crusades, Inquisition), muddied by politics (Northern Ireland, Israeli extremist settlers), or isolated and involving less "normal" individuals (abortion clinic bombings). They also raise doubts about the overall application of the argument, too � it's simply invalid to apply these observations mutatis mutandis to other religions without elaboration.

2 -- Dawkins' paradigm (shared by Harris, Hitchens et al.), that the common irrational bases of religions are more important that their differences, is simply a particular view of religion, an opinion. Dawkins has suggested, for instance, that moderate Muslims believe more or less the same thing as fundamentalists � or that where they differ is a matter of convenience or habit or arbitrary cherry-picking. This demands more of a supporting argument than simply saying that once you believe anything that's not supported by evidence the details don't matter. This objection is even more valid when Dawkins tries to link Christians and Jews, of whatever internal stripe, to the worst of Islam. And thus, as in my first objection, his argument really only relates to certain sects of Islam.

3 � Judging the 9/11 terrorists as "normal, cricket-playing" young men is based on speculation and inference. We actually know little about the psyches of these men.

4 � We have no reason to assume most atheists are humanists, so he should restrict his contrast to believers to the latter. Many atheists have in the past, and some still do, define "good" by different standards than simply improving people's welfare and avoidance of human suffering, etc.

5 � This argument would apply equally to other abstract, inflexible standards or overarching objectives such as communism, fascism, nationalism and tribalism � even "family-ism" if that's an appropriate term. (A person defending his family or reacting to an attack may see good and evil in quite different terms from those based in Dawkins' humanist standard, regardless of their individual beliefs or lack of them.) Sam Harris's thoughtful defense of the limited use of torture in extreme situations suggests Dawkins may be setting up a Pollyanna world for humanists to live in.

6 - So some religious people who normally act in moral ways (by Dawkins' standards) may in some circumstances break from those standards and do things Dawkins (and the rest of us) consider evil. Wel, so may many humanists.

And, given the right the circumstances, it would be the rare human being who wouldn't do so. Dawkins might say, Well, we would do so only with great reluctance. The same could be said of many believers -- albeit, not all, as we've seen in 9/11 and elsewhere.

So, at the end of it all, what is the difference here? the degree of enthusiasm with which someone commits horrible if necessary acts? Surely this would depend as much on personality and one's life experience as on one's faith or lack of it.

This argument seems now quite banal and obvious.

EB

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33. Comment #75349 by DuckPhup on October 2, 2007 at 11:33 am

I have often pointed out to Christians...

I am aware of tens of millions of people having been tortured and/or killed in the name of Jesus/Christianity.

I am not aware of even a single person ever having been tortured and/or killed in the name of rational skepticism.

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34. Comment #75350 by Mr DArcy on October 2, 2007 at 11:33 am

The timing of this posting is incrediable. In the U.S. the state of Alabama just ruled against the sex toy industry. Alabama upheld the banning of all sales of sex toys in that state.

Didn't the Americans learn anything from prohibition? I expect Fat Sam and his protection crew will find a way to jump state borders and set up illicit sex dens. Perhaps the State of Alabama should seize all the sex toys and send them off to the Taliban!

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35. Comment #75352 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 11:41 am

6 - So some religious people who normally act in moral ways (by Dawkins' standards) may in some circumstances break from those standards and do things Dawkins (and the rest of us) consider evil. Well, so may many humanists.

It's the holy books. They have mean stuff in them. The Big Book of Atheism has no mean stuff in it.

Sure, even if we got rid of all the holy books people would still be mean for a variety of reasons. But they wouldn't be mean because God's word commands it.

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36. Comment #75358 by steveroot on October 2, 2007 at 11:51 am

27. Comment #75332 by SilentMike on October 2, 2007 at 11:06 am
Though shalt not have fun with anything made of plastic

I Don't remember exactly which gospel that's from.

So *that's* what they mean by "Plastic Jesus"! :-)

Or was that "Plastic...(pant, pant)... JESUS!"?
Steve

Other Comments by steveroot

37. Comment #75360 by Hypoluxa on October 2, 2007 at 11:55 am

33. Comment #75349 by DuckPhup on October 2, 2007 at 11:33 am
I have often pointed out to Christians...

I am aware of tens of millions of people having been tortured and/or killed in the name of Jesus/Christianity.

I am not aware of even a single person ever having been tortured and/or killed in the name of rational skepticism."

Well said. :)

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38. Comment #75361 by tieInterceptor on October 2, 2007 at 11:56 am

Matt7895 on October 2, 2007 at 8:36 am
"Polls suggest that 13% of British Muslims regard the 7/7 London bombers as blessed martyrs."

Was it Sam Harrys the one that mentioned that 30% of 18 to 25 year old English Muslims would like Sharia law implemented in the UK?

now that is one scary statistic...

Other Comments by tieInterceptor

39. Comment #75363 by youmemeyou on October 2, 2007 at 11:59 am

I don't think that atheists can rationally seek to minimize suffering and maximize survival. I suspect that would amount to evolving towards a worm-like or bacterial state. "Nematode man" suffers little compared to the homo sapien, and will survive after the surface of the earth is parched dry.

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40. Comment #75371 by Eric Blair on October 2, 2007 at 12:13 pm

Dawkins is implying that average every-day moderate believers might, by virtue of the fact they believe in something irrational, some day do something akin to what the 9/11 terrorists did (I'm assuming he means on a much smaller scale and it may not actually involve killing people but it would be evil nonetheless).

He has simply not demonstrated this. His argument, as I said, applies to Muslim terrorists and even then it assumes the pivotal role of religion in their motivaton (I share his assumption but recognize it is an assumption).

We might also distinguish between those who carry out such things, including other suicide bombers, and those who encourage and train the bombers, and plan the events. There's likely a strong overlay of politics motivating the planners, as well as faith.

Setting aside atrocities by Christians for now, what about those by Jews (besides in biblical times, which may not be true anyway)?

Atrocities by Israel don't count as they can just as easily be ascribed to callous enforcement of the will of a security-oriented state, or even to simple nationalism. They're not any less wrong, just have a motivation that's not primarily religious.

If Dawkins wants his argument to hold, it should apply to Judaism, too.

EB

Other Comments by Eric Blair

41. Comment #75375 by Janet Factor on October 2, 2007 at 12:28 pm

_J_, 19:

Yes. The word is "faith."

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42. Comment #75377 by Dr Benway on October 2, 2007 at 12:35 pm

Dawkins is implying that average every-day moderate believers might, by virtue of the fact they believe in something irrational, some day do something akin to what the 9/11 terrorists did (I'm assuming he means on a much smaller scale and it may not actually involve killing people but it would be evil nonetheless).

No, that's not the argument. Moderates, being non-believers on some level, are unlikely to take their religion completely seriously, especially their more unpleasant scriptures. However they defend faith, and this defense provides a sense of communal reinforcement for more literal-minded believers. When non-believers challenge faith as a basis for anything, the moderates throw stones at them and thus empower the fundies further.

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43. Comment #75378 by Liveliest Crib on October 2, 2007 at 12:49 pm

40. Comment #75371 by Eric Blair on October 2, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Dawkins is implying that average every-day moderate believers might, by virtue of the fact they believe in something irrational, might some day do something akin to what the 9/11 terrorists did (I'm assuming on a much smaller scale and it may not actually involve killing people but it would be evil nontheless).

I think you have inferred something Dr. Dawkins did not imply. Curiously, your misunderstanding appears similar to those who misunderstand evolution, those who argue that under the theory of evolution, a dog might one day give birth to a cat.

Dawkins is not arguing that the average religious moderate individual might one day suddenly commit murder or another atrocity. He is arguing that religion and faith, by their nature, will lead some people, some members of a population wherein a religion is prevalent, to justify atrocities based on that prevalent religion. Moreover, he argues, if one accepts the premises of those members' religion, their justifications will be logically valid.

continued We might also distinguish between those who carry out such things, including other suicide bombers, and those who encourage and train the bombers, and plan the events. There's likely a strong overlay of politics motivating the planners, as well as faith.

Unless I am misunderstanding the arguments of Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, et al, none of them discount politics or nationalism or even poverty as influential variables altogether. Instead, they argue that religious belief is also one of the variables influencing people to commit atrocities, a variable discounted by those who respect such belief, and a variable far more powerful than politics, nationalism or poverty.

Somehow a debate has emerged about whether atrocities like 9/11 were committed because of politics or because of politics/nationalism/poverty. This perceived, and false, dilemma rather spectacularly misses the point we so called new atheists make. Although all of those factors are in the mix, if we removed either politics or nationalism or poverty from the equation, religious belief is powerful enough to cloud the moral sense of otherwise sensible people, and perpetuate the atrocities endlessly. There is simply no reasoning with someone who truly believes that his actions are ordained by an all-knowing deity. On the other hand, remove the religious belief from the equation, and the politics, nationalism or poverty become far less potent variables.

continued Setting aside atrocities by Christians for now, what about those by Jews (besides those in biblical times, which may not be true anyway)? [ ] Atrocities by Israel don't count as they can just as easily be ascribed to callous enforcement of the will of a security-oriented state, or even to simple nationalism. They're not any less wrong, just have a motivation that's not primarily religious. [ ] If Dawkins wants his argument to hold, it should apply to Judaism, too.

Perhaps you have not read Dawkins, Harris or Hitchens closely enough. None has a problem applying their arguments to Israel or Judaism. To the extent that Israel acts as any sovereign nation, and is not influenced by religion, they acknowledge it. To the extent that there are fundamentalist Jewish people, Israeli or not, committing atrocities in the name of their faith, they acknowledge that as well.

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44. Comment #75379 by eXcommunicate on October 2, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Irrationality?

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45. Comment #75384 by salanor on October 2, 2007 at 1:27 pm

I have the utmost regard for Dawkins work, I'm a humanist, an atheist and a rationalist, but I am gobsmacked, to coin an Americanism, by this article. Did the Beligians in the Congo act because of religion? Barefaced greed, I'd say. Have we forgotten Africa, where the dollar drives all morality and immorality? Sure, religion is a convenient "justification" for people (in their minds). You can "justify" slavery with religion, as pre-Civil War south of USA did, but the slavery comes about because of human greed. By focusing on 7/7 and 9/11, fairly insignificant events in terms of the horrors of the world, Dawkins ignores most of the history of the last 500 years. Smallpox needed no religion to kill millions of native Americans; the Spanish weren't there looking for the Virgin Mary. Inhumanity comes from competition amongst humans for resources; religion is simply the mist that obscures the horror. Attributing the behaviour of the Taliban to religion, ignoring the landscape, the history and the poverty, is just plain ignorant. Britain should be embarrassed by its own history of being rather late in prosecuting rape in marriage. There are skeletons in the cupboard of many countries; being Muslim or religious has little to do with it except to give people convenient excuses.
"The British and American soldiers, having washed, shaved themselves and had a good meal in preparation for their sortie into another Iraqi town, believed they were performing the highest patriotic duty. By the affirmation of their country they were as good as it is possible to be. They were not poor, downtrodden, oppressed or psychotic; they were well educated, sane and well balanced, and, as they thought, supremely right." The 9/11 terrorist may just as easily thought of themselves as warriors for their people; religion just eased the bitter pill with an ample does of delusion.
Frankly, I would have expected better of Dawkins!

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46. Comment #75385 by Teratornis on October 2, 2007 at 1:32 pm

"With or without [religion] you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."

Weinberg seems unfamiliar with the Stanford prison experiment, in which otherwise ordinary young men proved capable of great evil:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

I agree that religion (or any absolutist philosophy, such as Stalinism) can organize otherwise fairly good people to do evil on a massive scale, but I think the problem of evil in general is more due to youth and testosterone than anything else.

The most violent members of just about any human society are (some of) its young men. To a first approximation, young men are why we have crime, and warfare. The old men who run religions and military establishments around the world understand who they have to recruit.

I imagine that if every person alive had a temperament similar to the temperament of Prof. Dawkins right now (and his basic personality probably owes little to his world view, I suspect he'd be just as altruistic in a religious vein if he had gone that way), it would probably be difficult to persuade many of them to fly airplanes into skyscrapers, regardless of what religion they had been indoctrinated into.

The world has over a billion Muslims, yet only a tiny percentage have proved willing to commit suicide for Allah. Religion is the organizing force, to be sure, but the rarity of susceptible individuals suggests they may have some unusual (and perhaps identifiable) traits that religion happens to exploit.

There is something about the young male brain that makes it uniquely susceptible to raging impulses. Without religion or politics to channel and coordinate those impulses on a large scale, the result is the typical background-noise mayhem of youth gangs and criminality.

To really address the problem of evil, we would have to understand its biological basis, well enough to model the brains of men of recruiting age.

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47. Comment #75386 by Simon Packer on October 2, 2007 at 1:32 pm

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity (mentioned in a comment above) did convince human genome project leader Francis Collins of the veracity of the Christian worldview. He sets out his conversion in The Language of God. Denigrators of Lewis should be more specific. I suspect some who find it tricky have run along the well-oiled but simplistic lines of Dawkins dogma without asking enough questions for a tad too long. Collins does not deny evolution but sees it as wholly inadequate to explain various aspects of the human eperience. I agree, but am a liitle less credulous about the claims of evolutionary theory.
Christianity, defined as rigorously following Christ's teachings, will not result in harming others.

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48. Comment #75387 by steve99 on October 2, 2007 at 1:35 pm

Alcohol?

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49. Comment #75388 by steve99 on October 2, 2007 at 1:40 pm

Christianity, defined as rigorously following Christ's teachings, will not result in harming others.

If that was all Christianity was, it would have no supernatural aspect and would not be a religion, so would not be subject to Dawkins' criticism.

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50. Comment #75389 by SilentMike on October 2, 2007 at 1:48 pm

40. Comment #75371 by Eric Blair

what about those by Jews (besides in biblical times, which may not be true anyway)?

I don't think that what extreme jewish settlers do can be seperated from the fact that most of them are jewish fundamentalists.

Not to mention the fact that the jews wrote the old testiment. This is, literally, a god awful book we're talking about. It justifies atrocities left and right.

Of course jews are responsible for less horrid stuff then Christians and Muslims. There are, after all, a lot less of us than there are of them. And even if you found a sect that was up till now blameless, so what? They still believe in lies, and who's to say where these lies will lead them tommorrow?

That's not saying their all exactly the same. Clearly different rligions have different potentials for harm, and different sects within each religion have differing degrees of stability. But they do all have something in common. They have a skewed view of the world. It's very hard to trust someone to get the right ideas when his base is flawed. The bast way to do that (be both a person of faith and a decent person) is to have a sense of decency that overrides ones religious beliefs. In other words the way to be both religious and good is to be unfaithful to your faith.

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