Would the world be better off without religion?

Exempting the rationalization for such killings, your assertion is false. The US has indeed targeted civilians and children with foresight and intent.

Example: American indigenous peoples
Example: Nagaaski

Nagasaki was a military target, and the civilians who died there were incidental to the destruction of the target and the defeat of Japan to spare far greater casualties that would have attended a conventional "D-Day' style invasion.

U.S. military did target Native American villages made up almost entirely of women and children during the 19th century. It is a shame and blot on our history, but no greater than similar acts by other 19th century European nations.

"War is all hell", WT Sherman
"War is not a teaparty" Mao Tse-tung

Somehow we've gotten the notion that war can be conducted on the cheap, without casualties of any sort, and anything less than a clear-cut victory in half an hour is defeat. War is filled with mistakes, errors, misjudgments, and unexpected events that could never be foreseen. War is inefficient, but is clearly an effective way of determining whose point of view will prevail. It is something not engaged in lightly, but one embarked upon it must be prosecuted coldly and pursued to some end. The idea that wars can be fought and ended without consequences is foolish. Even those wars that are suspended will continue to foster conflict until the underlying causes are finally resolved.

There was no negotiating possible with the Axis Powers, nor with the Soviet Union. The Korean War has been "quiet" for over 50 years, but the conflict between the DPRK and the ROK remains and will remain until one or the other ceases to exist. The war waged against the West by the Radical Islamic Movement (RIM) will last a long time, as religious motivated wars so often do. The terrorists are a difficult enemy to fight because they aren't disciplined uniformed representatives of any specific nation. They are individuals who band together for the ideological purpose of defeating the infidel. Every successful operation they mount, even though it is a mere pin-prick, encourages more young people to murder decadent Westerners, especially Americans, regardless of their age, sex or any other indice. When a dog goes rabid in a small village, no child is safe until it is dead.

I'd agree if you had made the same arguement about Hiroshima, however the second bombing will always be contraversial. The US did not allow for enough responce time from the Japanese government.

Purely a judgment call based on hindsight.

Not true. Truman's generals were not all in favor of a second bomb. The was certainly difference in opinion then. Kyoto was infact the original second target, but I believe it was McArther who told Truman that it would only fuel the Japanese if the US destroyed all it's most ancient temples.

The second bomb will always be contraversial.

While Asherman is trying to dance around Hiroshima and Nagasaki, let me expand your list with the deliberate fire-bombing of more that 60 cities in Japan, ordered and planned by "Hap" Arnold and Curtis LeMay. Robert McNamara was in the United States Army Air Force Office of Statistical Control in the Second World War, and analyzed LeMay's bombing missions. In the documentary, Fog of War, he says that LeMay told him that had we lost the war, they would have been tried for war crimes.

The firebombing of Tokyo on the night of May 26, 1945, is estimated to have killed more than 72,000 people. That is more people than the number killed in the firebombing of Dresden, or in Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, or in Nagasaki, also with an atomic bomb. The deliberate fire bombing of Japan, more than 60 cities, is ironic, given that the Americans carried out daylight, precision bombing raids over Germany, eventually suffering more than 30,000 air crew casualties. But, then, we're just talking about a bunch of slant-eyed Japs, right?

Not everyone in the miitary agreed that the second bomb was necessary, but then the military isn't a debating society. General Marshall thought it necessary, and so did "The Buck Stops Here" Harry. The President order the bombs to force the fastest capitulation possible to save both American and Japanese lives. His was the decision, and I don't see much use in second guessing that decision today.

I see it as a grave reminder that restraint must be used. The weapons of information must be exercised harder than the bomb and bullet. I think that ignoring it; making itrivial is a way to pass of guilt. It's owrth thinking about, it's worth feeling remorse and guilt for.

we can certainly move on, but AMericans are notorious for being Maverick about descisions and the only restraint we show is in saying that we made mistakes.

I see great benefit in reviewing the implications of past military decisions, mankind's future may well depend on it. I suspect you could find a religious undertone (if not overtone) in most (if not all) of those decisions as well.*


*makes a spiffy segue back to the original topic "Would the world be better off without religion?"

Thanks chumly,
I want to get back into the topic I posted!
I haven't imput into this since about page 3!

Actually, thinking about it. Im glad we got off the subject.

Currently, no-one is even talking about religion. You are all arguing about other stuff.
This makes me think.
If there was no religion it would make very little difference, we would still all find things to argue about.

One follows the discussion, wherever it might lead so long as you have something to say. Religion and politics are perennial topics with humans, because they both are so intimately connected with our core beliefs. No one believes anything they regard as "wrong". We are herd animals who typically become deeply disturbed and anxious when separated from "our" herd, and of course, our herd values, beliefs, and etc. are those we most often accept as "true" and "right". In the remote mists of time tribal groups were small and in the struggle for survival, these core group beliefs had a high survival value for both the individual and group. In the 21st century the world is a much smaller place and the "tribal" groupings are vast and intermingled. This might not be a crucial problem if the humanistic and secular values of Western Civilization were uniformly adopted (yeah, right). Even then conflict would be inevitable so long as humans remain individuals capable of independent thought and the very human need to change things to "improve" reality to match their mental construction of what should be.

I enter the topic here. The reply is that the world would not be better off if the world was rid of religion. Ideas have never harmed anybody. It is only mistakenness which sometimes do, like the disaster of the Bay of Pigs invasion. Other than that, they had admitted that it was a disaster and that was the end of it. In the end, we learn from mistaken ideas even if in the short run something bad comes of it.

However, I do know what do harm people. This is irrationality, dogmatism, and emotional appeals. This should not be mistaken with religion. Not all irrationality is religion and not all religion is irrationality. These do harm people. It is because it causes people not to admit that they are wrong, or that the idea is bad. The result is that they continue to do the wrong thing, forever unchanging. The result is that they will do something bad if they are able.

The Pentacle Queen,
You have to understand (well you don't have to but it's nice to) that there are very different types of arguing all the way from the gentle art (I truly appreciate) to the inane soapbox (humorous at best).

Asherman,
Sure individualism has a price and the tribe mentality is no guarantee of success either. Advancing technologies are pointing to a third form http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=91708&highlight=

well, yes chum.
I agree.

I can't remember starting this thread, but I think when I posted I was thinking along the lines of muslim extremists bombing everyone all the time. I stupidly forgot to think about anything else. (that's evidently the first thing I think of when I think of religion these days. tut tut)
I suppose, what I'm thinking is:
If there was no religion, and no muslim extremeists to bomb people, then would there just be less violence? Or would all the muslim extremeists turn to animal rights protesting instead?

Isn't this a distinction without a difference, if one moral judgement is better than another?

If 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' is better than 'cannibalism is morally ok because one animal may eat another', then it implies the existence of an absolute moral standard against which both are measured, and one determined better or more moral than another, does it not?

Unless we take the position that all judgements are equally moral, it naturally follows that morals are based on absolutes.

All relativists become absolutists at some point, don't they? There is a point at which all say '(fill in the blank) is wrong, not because it's my opinion, but because it IS wrong.'

Where does JL purport that one moral judgment is "better" than any other? This appears to be nothing more than the expression of a preference.



No, it doesn't. The "do unto others" injunction constitutes advice, not a reference to an absolute moral standard. It simply advises the practice of enlightened self-interest.



Anyone familiar with the sorts of weak arguments you advance on the subjects of morals will recognize that this is an imposition you are making on what others have written. Nothing JL wrote says that all judgments are "equally moral." Precisely, JL's statement that there are no moral facts contradicts the notion that there can be any moral absolutes.



No, although it is predictable that you will make the claim, to prop up your own point of view.



Is there? What is your evidence that this is so? Is it not more accurate that you simply make such a claim in the attempt to validate your claim that moral absolutes do exist? Not only does JL's remark not support a claim that moral absolutes exist, it specifically denies that this is the case.

The problem is one of intolerant extremism which I might add is not restricted to realm of religion. Extemism is found in many aspects of human affairs and never (as far as I know) considered to be beneficial by any other than those whom partake. Therefore, the question would be better phrased "Would the world be better off without intolerant extremism in any form?" Then again, you might as well ask "Would the world be better off without people?"

Many of us have a narrow view of what religion and god are. Most people refer to god as an supernatureal objective reality that they either believe exists or doesn't exist. I consider the word "god" to represent a subjective experience and not a subjective reality. and I think we should leave the supernatural to the world of comic books.

coluber2001, your "subjective God" then is nothing more than a random set od sense experience. If God can affect your senses any which way (assuming that God can affect anything under him, like your senses of sight et cetera), like suddenly make you see a table, then any sense experience can be the result of God. It may, or it may not: How do you tell?

Perhaps it may be that God waves a hand, and suddenly there is this sense experience. But if God did not do anything like that, then what is the difference between it being caused by God and it being caused by anything else? And even if God did wave a hand, what is the difference between God waving a hand a white hand-ghost looking like a hand that waves for a few second? In both cases, your sense experience is the completely the same. Therefore, if God is subjective, then it makes no difference whether God exists or not. Anything God can do, a set of other things can also do.

For example instead of ONE god, there could have been a hell maker, a heaven maker, an Earth maker, an asteroid maker, etc. They and the things they produce can also interact in many ways: The Big Bang maker made the big bang, and the particles attracted each other, and made various other things.