happydolphin said:
Scoobes said:
happydolphin said:
| Scoobes said:
It's harder to manipulate people into doing violent acts through disbelief whereas it's easier to manipulate people if you can make them believe they're doing it for a greater power/good. That's what I meant by tool.
In this respect any belief system is more powerful a tool than a lack of belief.
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What about eugenics?
The power of belief is a force to be reckoned with, it can be powerful for good and very powerful for bad. The people who followed Hitler believed in the greatness of their race, whether it was under a veil of divinity or not, the point was that they held an ideal and it drove the nation towards some of the greatest atrocities our world has seen.
The power of belief need not require religion.
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I never said it did. Even if religion didn't exist, excuses will be made for acts of violence and there are plenty of examples of this throughout history. My two points were:
1. Atheism is a lack of belief and is therefore not a useful tool to manipulate people into carrying out violent acts.
2. Religion is one of if not the most powerful tool for manipulating large groups of people as it is an incredibly powerful belief system that is ingrained in people from a young age and continues across generations (moreso then other ideologies).
Take your eugenics example; a non-religious, social philosophy/pseudoscience used to perpetuate atrocious acts of violence. Who actually believes in eugenics and actively carries out "tests" anymore? Over the course of a century, viscious acts done in the name of eugenics have more or less stopped. A new excuse/tool has to be found (and sadly will in due course). That's not going to happen with religion; it's ingrained in society over multiple generations and is a deeply held personal belief system. If someone wants to manipulate people then religion becomes an easy way to do so by twisting religious texts to fit an agenda.
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Eugenics was used in history by non-religious people to push an idealistic vision of genetics of certain races. It didn't need to be religious to cause atrocities and that's my point.
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Like I said, I wasn't trying to insinuate that it's only religious belief that gets used as an excuse for violent acts. I've seen the Dachau camp the Nazis used as a template for all their camps as well as the killing fields left by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It doesn't need to be religious belief for violence to occur (the human race can be depressingly sick at times).
All I'm saying is that religion is one of the more powerful belief systems and also the easiest to manipulate people with.
