Religion Makes Good Men Evil?

zack

I watched Chris Hitchens last night on a show with Tim Russert. While I disagree strongly with most of what Hitchens says, he did say

one thing that struck me as profound. I'll paraphrase: Most people will do the right thing if left to their own devices, because most people are good people with decent morals. Sociopaths

will always delight in inflciting cruelty, because they are evil. Religion, however, can get good men to do evil things, and still consider themselves as people of good morals because they

support their deity. This is why religion is inherently evil and why it should be eliminated.

I know there was a thread on Hitchens' book. SO sorry if this like a repeat. It just struck me because dubs are mostly decent people who will do cruel things to others because their

religion demands it.

IP_SEC

Religion fiats what is good and evil. It does not make good and evil. Good and evil are relative abstracts.

Hitchins of all people should know that.

When I was "coming into the Truth", and saw it as my God-given duty to convert anyone who would listen, my father tried to warn me that there are two things best not talked about:
- Religion and Politics.

He may well have had a point!
Hitchens is quite correct in his observations:
- Using religion as their justification, otherwise decent people are capable of carrying out cruelty;
even extreme cruelty.

Before, though, we try and isolate isolate religion in the "Sin Bin", the same would have to be said of politics:
- it, too, is capable of inspiring otherwise decent people into carrying out acts of brutality.
eg. Nazi rule in Germany, Communist rule in the former USSR, and many other cases too numerous to mention.

The human creature being what we are, it is all too easy to become fanatical about either matter.
(In its more extreme forms, politics also becomes distinctly Cult-like).

Perhaps the real Bogey Man is the Cult:
- And that both religion and politics are matters that should be handled with extreme caution!
(It is difficult to imagine how religion could be "banned" - much less politics?)

Jack.

blondie

Or do evil men and women seek out religion?

Shawn10538

Huzzah!

Reefton Jack

Blondie raises an interesting question:
- Does Religion make Good Men (or Women) Evil, or does it attract people who were Evil in the first place?

i.e. Does it hold a particular attraction for that small minority of the population that is classified as
"Sociopathic"?
( According to the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" 1987, Anti-Social Personality Disorder affects approximately 3 per cent of the population ).

This could well be the case - religion may form a special attraction to some who have sociopathic tendencies.
However, the scale of involvement in acts of religiously-inspired (or politically inspired) cruetly would tend to suggest that something else is at work here, as well :
- More than a 3 percent minority can be induced to participate in cruel, even brutal, activities.
- Providing that these acts of cruelty have the "Sanction" of The Group.
( Whether that Group be a religious one or a political one).

JamesThomas

My sense is that religion is not so much about "good" and "evil", as it is about simple self-preservation.

In religion we are programmed to identify the health and longevity of "self" to be contingent upon appeasing or staying within the good graces of our chosen little deity. According to whatever god or religious dogma we prescribe to, this may require less than desirable acts be performed upon others.

Not knowing who/what we truly are, we place our definition of a "self" in the hands of religion. Perhaps not the wisest of moves.

j

Marcel

there was a quote some days ago on jwd...
it was like:

"good men do good things and bad men do bad things. only religion makes good men do bad things."

Religion Makes Good Men Evil?

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