Chapter 33
ARE ATHEISTS REALLY
HONEST ABOUT WAR?
Unlike in the time of Thomas Jefferson, when “Creator”, “religion” and “church” represented three distinct ideas, “religion” today is a very loaded term. It is entirely inaccurate, as Bill Maher and other atheists often do, to lump belief in God, organized religion and the evil that adherents of a particular religion engage in, together under a common term and then, to place the blame there for humanity's problems.
For example, Jesus is very clearly not the founder of Christianity or anything remotely like it, nor is it any more fair to blame Jesus for what people do in his name, than it is to blame Copernicus and Isaac Newton for Hiroshima. The same applies in varying degrees to Buddha, Confucius, Zarathustra and certain other so-called “founders” of various religions. There is no greater critic of fundamentalist religion or religious hypocrisy in history than Jesus, nor is there any greater advocate for personal, local and global peace.
Like religion, science and education are historically intimately entwined with war and human oppression on a massive scale, tracing back from ever more effective designs for ancient war chariots, DaVinci's war-machine inventions and, on up through the Manhattan Project, the modern-day military industrial complex and ever worse weapons of mass destruction. The American, French, Russian and several other revolutions were fomented by so-called “enlightened” intellectuals.
Thus, those who blame belief in God for war are plainly liars. It is correct to say religion is a tool often used to foment war and human oppression and, it's just as fair to point out science and education are often used for the same purpose.
However, it's not accurate to pretend either one is a root “cause” of human aggression. Believers in God and scientists both often leave a positive legacy and, many of history's most revered individuals demonstrated a profound personal belief in God. Jesus correctly singled out religious hypocrisy, rather than belief in God, as having a significant negative societal impact.
According to Jesus and some New Testament authors and, according to ALL known scientific and historical evidence, the root cause of humanity's problems is sin, causing individual human frustration, greed and aggression, resulting in negative choices being made by individual human beings. Families, tribes, cities, states, nations, armies, religions, political parties, corporations, unions, educational institutions, professional scientists and all other “groupings” of human beings, are made up of individual people, each making their own individual choices.
It would be refreshing if modern educators and people like Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens could grow up just a little and, begin placing the blame for humanity's problems where it belongs, squarely on our own self-contradicting shoulders. ¹ Perhaps then, a modern species in grave peril of losing it's own commonly shared global habitat, could begin to have a little more unbiased and accurate understanding of where Jesus and the authors of the Bible are actually coming from.
Does belief in God cause war? You decide.
{ See Appendix C: IS EVOLUTION REALLY TRUE? for related information. }
NOTES:
1. It is historically naive, intellectually childish and irrelevant as to the root cause of violence, to blame war and other human violence on belief in God and/or, religion. Like science, education, philosophy and similar terms, religion is a neutral and benign concept unto itself, not a root cause of violence. Human suffering caused by human violence results from bad choices made by individual human beings, which emanate from greed and frustration within our own individual selves, just as Jesus clearly pointed out. All of the above listed can be used for good or evil purposes and, used wrongly to foment, aid and abet war and other human violence. On the other hand, it is entirely absurd to pretend that religion is harmful while science and education are not; the historical evidence of the French, Russian, American, Chinese revolutions, WWI, WWII and forward, most definitively proves otherwise.
In the historical past, religion seemingly played a more dominant role in war-related violence because societies in general, were structured differently in theory. The invention of printing and cheap mass dissemination of knowledge has gradually changed the excuses for war. From the so-called "age of enlightenment" forward, by no means all, but societies in general on a global scale, have gradually been shifting away from theocracy and more towards nationalism and intellectual idealism; democracy, communism, socialism and similar. War and rumor of war (rumor of war causes great fear, social unrest and economic instability), murder, theft, rape and other violence and, the resulting human oppression and human rights suppression, mass displacement, homelessness, hunger, disease, psychological trauma, emotional sorrow, suffering and pain remains. Only the names of naive, shallow and self-justifying human theories leading to a variety of new excuses for war have changed.
Those who blame belief in God, which is not synonymous with "religion", for human violence and other oppression, are only kidding themselves. War is very clearly greed-based at the root, involving either the protection or theft of wealth and almost always, war is about both. Human beings are individually and collectively responsible for our own bad choices and resultant massive global suffering. Neither science, education, philosophy, religion, nationalism, democracy, communism or socialism are a root cause of human suffering. Neither a scientifically enhanced WMD "sword"or a "sword" of religion, nationalism and idealism can cause violence, unless and until a human being decides to use it for a violent means to a destructive ends purpose.
Consider the following arbitrary list of names: Isaiah, Buddha, Confuscius, Socrates, Alexander, Julius Cesar, Leonardo DaVinci, Mamonides, Kepler, Queen Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Newton, Columbus, John Locke, Voltaire, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, George Washington, Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Samuel Clemens, Gandhi, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Edwin Teller, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, Harry Truman, Chairman Mao, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Mother Teresa, Joan Baez, Jimmy Carter, Jerry Falwell, Dick Cheney, Pat Robertson, Christopher Hitchens, Barack Obama, Bill Maher. Is belief in God really the cause of humanity's problems? Or, as Jesus taught, do all of us contribute to the negative pile of human oppression? Who is kidding who?
Other Books by Richard Aberdeen Click Here to eMail the Author Copyright © by Richard Aberdeen Copyright © by Freedom Tracks Music No part of this material may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author: Inquires click here. Appendix Revolution and Revolution/Side B are open copyright and may be reproduced or utilized as desired. |