Remembering 9/11

[naomi24]

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction. - Blaise Pascal

[jomifl]

jno ..you misunderstood the pascal quote completely ( none so blind etc..)
What evidence apart from your mind reading powers do you have that atheists think themselves 'pure'. Purity in this context is a religious concept and therefore anathema to an atheist pure or otherwise.

[naomi24]

jno, the sentence doesn't suggest that religion is uniquely linked to complete and cheerful wickedness. Yet more selective editing on your part it seems.

[keyplus90]

Lets hope one day American government would let the world know the truth behind all this conspiracy. And lets hope one day someone would be able to explain how a whole jet evaporated after hitting pentagon.

And finally lets hope that one day killing of any innocent person from any race, religion, and country at the hands of individuals as well as state would stop. And lets hope one day an Afghan child would be considered as important as an American child and lets hope one day a Palestinian child would be considered as important as an Israeli child.

[jno]

Birdie, you're right about the links between Berlin and Rome; but I still don't think Nazism was in any sense a religious crusade. It was about the depression, Lebensraum and revenge for the Great War. The Jews were scapegoated for the first of these. Hitler did play up his love of the Roman Catholic church, but (unlike Chamberlain) I find it wise not to believe everything Hitler said; much Nazi ideology seems in fact to have been based on a vague vision of Aryan paganism.

naomi, Pascal said, as per your quote, that men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction (I do hope I haven't inadvertently edited anything out in a way that might confuse you?)

I have given numerous examples of men doing evil just as completely and cheerfully without religious conviction and have argued that therefore Pascal is wrong.

Your response: 'I don't think so' - which, er, is not a surprise, since you don't actually change your mind, you just close threads down if a 'debate' is not going your way. You seem to prefer to devote your time to imaginary scandals about 'editing'. I shall now leave you to it.

[jno]

Birdie, if you read it again you'll notice I don't tell you what you think but what you do; a subtle difference.

[carmalee]

not going to get involved with religion or politics - am sorry for the victims and their families

[beso]

Once again jno simply disregards the evidence saying that we should not take notice of what Hitler actually wrote and instead adopt an unsubstantiated interpretation that he was actually motivated by "Ayrian paganism"(whatever that might be).

Mein Kampf clearly shows that Hitler was religiously motivated. He joins a long line of dictators who presumed that their own deluded thoughts came directly from God.

This schema was first published in the Old Testament and continues to be used to justify genocide and motivate a frenzy of murder. Religion promotes unity of thought and unquestioning action and that lies at the centre of the problem.

While the Rawandan massacres were technically not overtly religious, the publication of anti-Tutsi "The Ten Hutu Commandments" in 1990 in the lead up to the slaughter does suggest a religious component is involved.

Although technically not being a theistic philosophy Communism certainly fits the definition of a religous doctine with an unquestionable faith in a predetermined set of belifs.

[beso]

Keyplus/// And lets hope one day someone would be able to explain how a whole jet evaporated after hitting pentagon. ///

Jet airliners carry vast amounts of fuel and are constructed mostly of aluminium which melts and burns quite easily. Most of the plane disintregated in a fireball inside the Pentagon.

Perhaps we could take the stupid conspiracy theories a little more seriously when someone comes up with an alternative explanation for what happened to the very real plane and all those aboard it.

Clearly Keyplus would rather believe that Muslims did not commit the attacks because that suits his religious convictions. Wake up.

[naomi24]

jno, oh dear. Yet again your floundering argument has descended into personal slights and silliness. I began this thread as a tribute to the victims of the appalling atrocity that was 9/11, never expecting anyone to be crass enough to purposefully create a fatuous argument from it. With religious apologists like you whose first thought when the planes struck was 'cheap flights in future', I should have known better than to expect condemnation of the perpetrators or a little respect for the dead. How very sad you are.

[mibn2cweus]

God’s cause is the devil’s consequence.

There are no actions so depraved as those justified solely on the presumption of obedience and unquestioning allegiance to and on behalf of the unfathomable will of a creator its victims refuse to deny the existence of and in fact worship themselves as their instructor, guide and the one who formulates their own beliefs and actions, both equally oblivious to the reality of worshiping a common enemy unwilling to acknowledge that they are mutual victims of the consequences of attempting to relegate personal responsibility for their conflicting beliefs and actions to a common delusion.

Nowhere is the hidden cost of succumbing to Pascal’s wager more evident than in the tragic consequences manifested on 9/11. No belief, however seemingly innocent, should be embraced uncritically.

[jake-the-peg]

I would be very cautious of using Mein Kamf as a source for what Hitler truely believed.

It's pretty easy to jump at evidence that supports your point of view there's some interesting information here showing other perspectives

http://constitutional...tler-leftist/id2.html

I'd say on balance his religious ideas were most likely somewhat confused.

I'm going to resist the Weinberg quote here - as I've overused it so much but I really believe it is true.

It is as pointless to try to blame Cristianity for the acts of Hitler as it is to try to credit it with the acts of Wilberforce

However religion does have the ability to make otherwise good people do some abolutely evil things - and often to people they love

[beso]

Religious ideas are always confused. There is no mechanism to reconcile philisophical inconsistencies and contradictions.

The only way religion deals with this is by forming factions that by definition remain permanently irreconcilable because no amount of evidence however strong can sway the faith of either side.

Hitler's thoughts are no more confused than those of the Biblical hero Joshua as his gang of murderous theives slaughtered dozens of cities in a genocidal rampage. Their success in putting thousands "to the sword" is upheld as evidence of the glory of thier God.

This is the point that those who criticise religion are trying to make. Those who make mayhem in the name of religion are NOT abberant deviations from an otherwise sound philosophy but are behaving exactly as those described in the book as heroes.

Religion is not the harmless pastime that apoligists argue should be respected but an insidious menace that stands at the foundations of what is wrong with our societies.

Fascism and religion, especially Abrahamic religion, go hand in hand. These personality cults to Abraham, Mohammed and Jesus are no different to those enjoyed by Hitler, Napolean or Ghengis Kahn. Nobody should ever be assigned as being beyond criticism. Disaster is the inevitable consequence and most dangerously tragic when it becomes religion.

[ludwig]

I think he was making a general point about the ability of religion to brainwash people, and it's a fair point which still applies today, and Naomi makes a perfectly valid link between the quote and what happened on 911.

I don't think it's necessary to analyze the semantics in detail and debate about whether the Spanish Inquisition went about their duties any more cheerfully and completely than the Nazis, or whether Pol Pot was more cheerful than Ghengis Khan etc etc. I don't see much difference between them all - the Nazis instilled a kind of religious fervour in their followers, maybe not for a creator being, but for a fuhrer and a fatherland and all that bollux, which resulted in the same kind of brainwashing.

I'd say Pascal's quote applies to them all, but it was made in an age when atheism didn't really exist as it does today, so most evils were done in the name of religion, because religion was all pervading.
If he'd been around at the time of the holocaust he may have phrased it differently, or had a different opinion.

[naomi24]

Yes, it seemed pretty straightforward to me too Ludwig, but :o/

Keyplus, how do you imagine this conspiracy by the US government was planned and accomplished? Run us through the process.