Posted by Jeff on January 03, 1997 at 12:06:27:
In Reply to: Re: Carl Sagan posted by Stephen Charchuk on January 02, 1997 at 23:09:54:
: : I probably touched on a major point of contension in the humanist/freethought
: : movement. That is, to what extent should we be pro-human vs. anti-religious? I
: : agree that religion certainly has its fair share of dogmatism and harm. We see
: : things like cults, pseudoscience, hatred, war, healing frauds, etc... But there
: : are many secular forms of harm, credulity, and dogmatism as well. An example
: : would be Stalinism. Stalinism is a secular system but it was responsible for a
: : host of atrocities, persecution, and even pseudoscience (Stalin supported the
: : Lysenkoism fiasco).
: More wars and killings have been done in the name of one god or another than because of anything else.
: Stalin was a product of his time and he was a socio-pathic monster who would use anything to his advantage.
I Agree. Religions, ingenral, have been a cause to many attocities. I think it is important for us to understand why this happens. It is real easy to say that it is because they were irrational, or not using free thought. This is true and the answer is more complacated than that. Stail bad bad, buit to say that it was just him it to miss the point. Stalin was not just a product of his time but a product of the instatutions that brought him to power, that is he had the power and most everyone else listened. The same thing happens in a lot of institutionalised religions. There are those that interpate god, and everyone else then believes. Those people who are doing the interpeting get their agendas met, of course. It seems that power is the corupting factor, and many religions cater to human's pre-disposition to dominate hierarchies. When this happens, catastraphy!
-Jeff