Correlation of religion and immorality

God vs Satan

Dwindling in Unbelief seems to be on a bit of a roll - good work. This graph, explained in more detail here, just about sums it up. The being they invent to be evil is actually comparatively benign.

Rhys Murder?

I will admit to being disgusted by the fact that the innocent child, Rhys Jones, was killed by Sean Mercer. But I am appalled that he was found guilty of murder. I assume that this will require some explanation.

To be convicted of murder you must have committed 'Actus reus' (guilty act) with 'Mens rea' (guilty mind). In other words you must have killed somebody with the intent of doing so.

As it happens Sean Mercer had no intention of killing Rhys Jones. He had the intention of killing somebody else, but failed. Reading news accounts Mercer was guilty of numerous crimes, but this does not make him guilty of murder.

Is this an abuse of our legal system? I have commented before about how the incarceration of an innocent is worse than the freedom of a criminal. In this case, despite the absolute hideousness of what happened, has true justice been applied?

Religion and Child Abuse

I had a discussion with somebody recently about how I could not possibly be moral as I didn't believe in a god. The woman I had the conversation with was a devout Christian, but said I could have been Jewish, Muslim, or whatever (as long as it wasn't an atheist). After going through the usual Leviticus quotes and a kind and benevolent god causing suffering she quipped back with something along the lines of "this all happened long ago, things have changed".

Yes, things have changed. But not religion. The BBC reports of a woman (perhaps as young as 13) being stoned to death for being raped. This is a kind of cruelty that I find unimaginable. I find it hard to believe that these people share some of my genes. But then again, I must be wrong, I can't possibly be the moral one.......

A Response to Aquinas Dad

Recently, as some of the regular lurkers know (at least according to Google Analytics), I have been having an argument with a guy (pseudonym Aquinas Dad) who has been arguing that atheists have killed more people than religious people. His sole argument centres on the atheist nature of communist organisations (in this case focusing on Shining Path in Peru).

Well you’d imagine that Shining Path being a bunch of atheist murderers would make the search “shining path atheism” a good term to Google. Indeed it returns over 360,000 results. However the comments of Aquinas Dad on this blog were ranked 4^th in the listings, hardly indicative of a wealth of scholarly study. (I realise this isn’t exactly the best way of rating intellectual ideas but it is indicative of what has been done).

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I accept communist organisations, such as the Maoist Shining Path, have committed murder on a large scale. But did they do this because they were atheists? Clearly the answer is no. In the same way that most murders by religious fundamentalists often are not done because people believe in this, that or these gods. The problem is that the religious G3 (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) through their acceptance of horrific Bronze Age texts actually condone these actions.

If the Old Testament or the Koran actually condemned violence then many of the most horrific acts in history would have been avoided. These texts gave, and still give, authority to such actions as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust. (The last one may seem far fetched but I was sent a magazine by the Christadelphians which states clearly that “the Holocaust was an essential part of god’s covenant with Israel”).

So yes, there are mentally ill individuals (both theist and atheist) who commit murder. The difference is that the religious person has the authority of religious texts, accepted by millions of people worldwide. They act to support an imaginary being that they believe certainly exists and holds the key to their personal afterlife.

Atheism denies the existence of this imaginary deity and, as a consequence, has to accept the delusions of these people for what they are: delusions. It may not be easy, but it’s the truth.