Comments on: “The main source of hatred in the world is religion”

By: SteveK

SteveK — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:32:49 +0000

No paragraph breaks.
‘Anonymous’ comment.
Not going to read it.

By: anon

anon — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:11:52 +0000

His statement may be wrong, but we must also remember that his conclusions may be correct. Simply because his original statement is incorrect or skewed to one perspective does not necessarily make his position invalid. Because it is impossible to know what the world would be like without religion at this time, in our lifetimes we probably will never find out if these conclusions are wrong or not. In my personal experiences however, I have found that hateful outlooks are more often than not perpetuated by religious people that I know. I have many agnostic and atheist friends as well, all of whom lead moral lives up to and beyond what most religious people do. I have yet to meet an atheist or agnostic that promotes hatred of anything at all. Yet I have met many many religious Christians, Catholics and Mormons who have these hateful beliefs, be it against homosexuals, blacks, Jews, atheists, pro-choicers or more often a combination of those I’ve previously mentioned. Of course, this is only my personal experience so it is a small sample of a much larger picture and I can’t make any general conclusions based on this. It does make me wonder though, what the religious would do if the laws of government were not in place to stop them. Would they hang me for heresy and blasphemy against their gods? Would I be imprisoned for my non-belief? I know the reason I don’t hurt and kill other people is because I feel it is morally wrong to do so to ANYONE, but many religious, Christian and non-Christian alike don’t share my morals when it comes to this, and many would justify killing me with their various holy books in one passage or another. I wonder what you would be like if this was a theistic government for Christianity, SteveK. Would you even be the same as you are now? Might you be putting me to death, fully justified by what you are doing because your god and government both endorse it? Or would you be standing silently by while they did? Or maybe you would be condemning the government for misinterpreting your bible and be dying with me? Please excuse my rambling I’ve gotten way off point. This post wasn’t really a response or argument to anything, I am simply sharing some of my recent thoughts on this subject.

By: SteveK

SteveK — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:04:17 +0000

c)Hatred and belief in God show a very strong correlation to each other, however neither is exclusive to one another.

OK, good catch. From what I understand correlation means belief has *something* to do with morality, which is somewhat similar to (b). In my mind it STILL means Hitchen’s original statement about morality is wrong.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:52:36 +0000

You are wrong. He has another option:

c)Hatred and belief in God show a very strong correlation to each other, however neither is exclusive to one another.

By: SteveK

SteveK — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:53:02 +0000

This may have been discussed elsewhere and I don’t know about it.

From what I’ve heard, Hitchens (or perhaps someone else) claims that you don’t need to believe in God to be a moral person. I presume he would also agree that you don’t need to believe in God to be an *immoral* person.

If so, it follows that a hateful person, which is an immoral person, doesn’t need to believe in God to be hateful. Belief in God isn’t *necessary*.

As I see it, Hitchen’s has two options:

a) hate has *nothing* to do with belief in God.
b) belief in God is necessary in *some* instances which means Hitchen’s statement about morality is wrong.

Comments?