In many places surveyed, 20% or more of all adults have left their childhood religious group. Christianity and Buddhism have had especially large losses. Pew Research Center.
Just because they aren’t theist doesn’t mean they don’t have horrible backwards teachings. Most people are good without religion. Religion creates situations where otherwise good people do evil, because they’re told it is actually good.
Most people are not good without religion, they are good because of civilization. If society breaks down, everyone is going to get real mean, real quick.
The most evil people in Nazi Germany were generally anti-religious.
I don’t know if evil is the right word. However, most people are self serving and will do “evil” things to enrich themselves. Whether that makes them evil is up for debate. As far as I can see, it’s a matter of human nature following the rules of game theory.
Even with civilisation or society, there’s always been a subset of people looking to exploit whatever facet of existence they can, whether it be religion, politics, crimes of opportunity, weaknesses in social systems, or even the justice systems that are supposedly meant to deal with those flaws.
And to add even more complexity, other people who aren’t pieces of shit looking to exploit others form emotional attachments to those who are and are fooled by their lies and will defend them. Others don’t have attachments but see parallels to themselves and worry that attempts to deal with the problematic ones will result in the same treatment being applied to them (and aren’t necessarily wrong because even justice trying to act in good faith can get it wrong).
It’s all a complex web of power struggles and religion is just one set of stands.
Hard disagree. Yes, when people are desperate they’re capable of horrible things, but most people won’t shoot a home intruder even if they went through the process of purchasing a gun for home defence and have someone break in. Everyone is capable of great evil, but they are not evil. Most people will choose to cooperate if they can.
Also, I’d say the most evil Nazis were religious. Their religion was Nazism though. They had a belief (that they were told was scientific, but wasn’t) that some people were better than others, and some groups actively needed to be removed to make the rest of us better in the future. It’s the same beliefs religions create, and it was also based in faith, just not of a god.
The most evil people in Nazi Germany were generally anti-religious.
Unless you’re excluding old Adolf from that list (which would be both interesting and telling), this is not correct. A lot of people forget about him though.
Just sounds like the usual “no true Christ-man” being resurrected whenever there’s some atrocity for the church to slink away from once it becomes unpopular.
Just because they aren’t theist doesn’t mean they don’t have horrible backwards teachings. Most people are good without religion. Religion creates situations where otherwise good people do evil, because they’re told it is actually good.
Most people are not good without religion, they are good because of civilization. If society breaks down, everyone is going to get real mean, real quick.
The most evil people in Nazi Germany were generally anti-religious.
I don’t know if evil is the right word. However, most people are self serving and will do “evil” things to enrich themselves. Whether that makes them evil is up for debate. As far as I can see, it’s a matter of human nature following the rules of game theory.
Even with civilisation or society, there’s always been a subset of people looking to exploit whatever facet of existence they can, whether it be religion, politics, crimes of opportunity, weaknesses in social systems, or even the justice systems that are supposedly meant to deal with those flaws.
And to add even more complexity, other people who aren’t pieces of shit looking to exploit others form emotional attachments to those who are and are fooled by their lies and will defend them. Others don’t have attachments but see parallels to themselves and worry that attempts to deal with the problematic ones will result in the same treatment being applied to them (and aren’t necessarily wrong because even justice trying to act in good faith can get it wrong).
It’s all a complex web of power struggles and religion is just one set of stands.
Hard disagree. Yes, when people are desperate they’re capable of horrible things, but most people won’t shoot a home intruder even if they went through the process of purchasing a gun for home defence and have someone break in. Everyone is capable of great evil, but they are not evil. Most people will choose to cooperate if they can.
Also, I’d say the most evil Nazis were religious. Their religion was Nazism though. They had a belief (that they were told was scientific, but wasn’t) that some people were better than others, and some groups actively needed to be removed to make the rest of us better in the future. It’s the same beliefs religions create, and it was also based in faith, just not of a god.
Unless you’re excluding old Adolf from that list (which would be both interesting and telling), this is not correct. A lot of people forget about him though.
Just sounds like the usual “no true Christ-man” being resurrected whenever there’s some atrocity for the church to slink away from once it becomes unpopular.