Good people....

[sb129]

Good people will alway do good things. Evil people with always do evil things. But the only way good people will do evil things is through religion"

[HokeyReligions]

Whafu?

 

Since I am of the opinion that good and evil reside in each human, I do not agree with you. I'm agnostic, but I see religion as not just individual faith, but as an avenue for people who exhibit their 'evil' actions predominatly to focus on their 'good' actions and become better citizens and spiritually or emotionally healthier.

[Tony T]

Good people will alway do good things. Evil people with always do evil things. But the only way good people will do evil things is through religion"

 

This statement does not compute at all. If a good person robs a bank, it has nothing to do with religion at all. When a good person steals a gallon of gas from the pump, religion is not involved.

 

Your's is an irrational statement that makes no sense. Back to the drawing board.......

[whichwayisup]

Life is all about choices. You learn through your own experiences, good and bad.

 

But the only way good people will do evil things is through religion

Question for you...So, if an evil person finds religion, can they become good?

[alphamale]

...So, if an evil person finds religion, can they become good?

depends on the religion they find....for example if they found Islam then they'd still be evil. But if they found Christianity or Judiasm then they'd be good.

[Lizzie60]

Good people will alway do good things. Evil people with always do evil things. But the only way good people will do evil things is through religion"

 

I don't agree that good people become evil through religion... I agree that religion should be kept strictly inside our home.

[Moai]

This statement does not compute at all. If a good person robs a bank, it has nothing to do with religion at all. When a good person steals a gallon of gas from the pump, religion is not involved.

 

Your's is an irrational statement that makes no sense. Back to the drawing board.......

 

What????

 

You are completely missing the point of the statement.

 

A good person would not rob a bank. A good person would not steal gas. That is what an evil person would do. See?

 

But, to get a good person to do something evil, it would take religion, meaning that thy would do something bad believing it to be for a "greater" good.

 

The men who were involved in the Inquisition did so because they believed that torturing their victims would purify them, as did burning them. The nuns who tortured and flogged infants in their orphanage thought they were "purging" the sin of illegitimacy from them (that happened in the early 60's, by the way). Priests in Peru would baptize native infants and then bash their brains out under the belief that they would go to Heaven in that case.

 

See? These people all thought that they were good, and were following god's plan, and did horrible, evil things. That is the point.

 

It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak (or in your case, write) and remove all doubt.

[sb129]

Thank you Moai.

 

I wasn't implying that ALL people who are religious are evil.

I don't think that at all.

And there are alot of EVIL people who aren't religious at all.

 

The statement isn't that difficult..... there are alot of GOOD religious people out there. Even though I don't agree with their particular beliefs, that doesn't make them bad people to me.

 

But some of these good people get sucked into extremist views, and by virute of that commit evil, even though they THINK they are doing right by their religion.

 

Examples (feel free to expand the list- I just got up):

 

Dan and Ron Lafferty

Perpetrators of 9/11

Perpetrators of 7/7

Crusaders

 

etc

[lonelybird]

If people want to do evil things, they can find any exuses to justify their evil purpose, sometimes they will fall into traps but thinking they are doing the *right* thing, the real reason of their evil deeds is out of selfish purpose or out of fear, to satisfy their own flesh. So Bible says "tear down all imaginations and high powers that are against God's words", what is God's words? full of love and spiritual fruits.

 

God wants people to love each other, wants people to have spiritual fruits, wants people to be Christ-like (serve others), not want people to be selfish

[sb129]

I am not talking about god- its RELIGION....

None of this is new, and I have borrowed HEAVILY from other writers, but its what I think too.

 

Israelis and Palestinians are killing each other by the hundreds in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Hindus and Muslims are slaughtering each other in India, herding neighbors into house or trains then setting them afire. Catholics and Protestants continue to kill each other in Northern Ireland. Sunnis and Shias have their arms wrapped around each other's throats throughout the Islamic world. And of course, on Sept. 11, 19 Muslims were so determined to murder helpless Christians and Jews that they were willing to die to shed the blood of other religions.

 

 

Religion has certainly been bad for history. In recent decades alone, Hindus and Sikhs have been slaughtering each other, blowing up airliners and firing artillery shells into temples. In the fighting over Sri Lanka, Tamil Hindus have fired machine guns at school buses full of Sinhalese Buddhist children, and the Buddhists in turn have firebombed Hindu schools. Thousands of Chinese grew up as orphans because their Buddhist parents were murdered during World War II at the urging of Shinto priests.

 

 

Looking further back, huge numbers of Eastern Orthodox Armenians were murdered by Muslims at the turn of the century. Much of Europe's history has been a nightmare of Christian-on-Christian killing, including the 30 Years' War, in which an estimated 7.5 million people--one-third of the European population at the time--died owing to Catholic-versus-Protestant slaughter. England's history is full of Protestants murdering Catholics; France's history is full of Catholics murdering Protestants; Spain's history is full of Christians murdering Jews. Pretty much all of Europe is to blame for the Crusades, in which Christians murdered Muslims. This inventory could go on at considerable length. King Olaf Tryggvason's declaration from about the year 1000--"all Norway will be Christian or die!"--sums it up.

 

 

And if you talk of mere hatred--as opposed to all-out killing--the accounting is even more horrifying. Many faiths and denominations have throughout history dedicated themselves to hating other faiths and denominations. About 100 years ago, to cite one of many examples, Protestant denominations called the Pope the Whore of Babylon, while Pope Leo XIII declared Protestants "enemies of the Christian name." Sunnis and Shias have been denouncing each other since just a few years after the Prophet Muhammad died. The Eastern Orthodox church has in its past denounced Catholicism as a false religion. In 1997, a small group called the Union of Orthodox Rabbis declared that the Conservative and Reform movements of Judaism are "not Judaism at all." Intrigue among Buddhist and Shinto sects have led to much violence.

When you examine history, it is clear, The fact that religions preach love, but often generate violence, cannot be dismissed as a minor imperfection.

 

Whew....... taken me all morning to cut and paste that one!

[Topper]

depends on the religion they find....for example if they found Islam then they'd still be evil. But if they found Christianity or Judiasm then they'd be good.

 

So Islam is evil? What about Buddhist? Pagans?

There are a lot of evil Christians out there as well as Jews.

[Yamaha]

But the only way good people will do evil things is through religion"

 

So your saying that when a good person does an evil thing it's their religion that is at fault?

 

So the religion is evil?

[quankanne]

yes. Religion is evil. Simply because a handfull of posters deem it so. Forget about man's nature, of his struggle to counteract his sinful (read: Evil) nature by doing good.

 

hell, this is beginning to sound a bit like predestination theology, except that religion is the deciding force, not man's decision to act on good or evil impulses!

[little_girl]

you go girl?!?!????????????cuz god is an evil person?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sb129]

Life is all about choices. You learn through your own experiences, good and bad.

 

 

Question for you...So, if an evil person finds religion, can they become good?

 

Yes, actually there are many examples of people "making good" after finding god.

Unfortunately, they often become the worst kind of zealots afterwards.

 

Sorry everyone, I was feeling in a particularly contrary mood when I started this thread.

 

I do have that opinion, but I accept there are exceptions. As there are to everything. I am too tired to get off the fence today.

[quankanne]

Yes, actually there are many examples of people "making good" after finding god. Unfortunately, they often become the worst kind of zealots afterwards.

 

:D I don't think zealots are solely defined by the act of embracing religion or faith or God, just something in their psychological makeup that breaks forth. Though they are polar opposites, we can classify Madalyn Murray O'Hair and someone who is a tent-revival preacher pretty much the same way, very zealous in their stance (rabid, in some instances!) ...

 

religion is just one of many, many vehicles that man uses to define what he believes. If you're going to point the finger at it, surely you have to throw in stuff like popular culture, socioeconomic, psychological and other strong influences. Hitler was an altar boy, but he also was one fupped duck dude psychologically. Being an altar boy didn't make him a mass murderer any more than being an art student did – it was his psychological make-up.

[sb129]

You are right Quankanne.

 

Obviously to talk about factors other than religion I would have to start a new thread.

 

There are people out there that will do evil regardless, due to their psychological make up, that I have never disputed.

 

However, I think that SOME religions give SOME people an outlet or percieved justification for their actions.

 

Some religions prey on vulnerable people.... others don't.

 

I don't have the energy to argue today!!!

[quankanne]

I think that SOME religions give SOME people an outlet or percieved justification for their actions. Some religions prey on vulnerable people.... others don't

 

my take is that some people use religion as their means for justifying their behavior and to influence others to join in their acts of madness. And right now I've got The Inquisition in mind – ideally, it was to ensure that the Catholic faith be kept intact, but people lost sight of that goal and started abusing others in their zeal to maintain that goal. And in the process gave the Church a huge black eye and a bad rep. Same with the Conquistadores using religion to further their cause. Yet there are so many other examples of faith gone right that get lost because people tend to focus on the scandal, not the good, of things.

 

same thing with politics – I personally think Bill Clinton is a joke, though I'm sure he did a heck of a lot of good during his tenure as president. However, I just can't seem to get past being scandalized at how people have made him into some kind of demi-god when he's just as flawed as the rest of us.

[sb129]

my take is that some people use religion as their means for justifying their behavior and to influence others to join in their acts of madness.

 

Good point.

 

Scandal is so much more newsworthy than good news tho, don't you think?

 

All people are flawed, I don't think anyone is a demi-god.

[sunshinegirl]

But, to get a good person to do something evil, it would take religion, meaning that thy would do something bad believing it to be for a "greater" good.

 

Look up the Stanford Prison Experiment. Run by social psychologist Philip Zimbardo back in 1971, it's gotten renewed attention lately because of the Abu Ghraib abuses.

 

The basic argument is that good people put in an evil environment may in fact eventually perpetrate evil acts themselves. Zimbardo had to stop the experiment early because the 'prison wards' (college students) behaved extremely abusively toward the 'prisoners' (other college students). Religion had absolutely nothing to do with the degeneration of the wards' behavior that occurred over the course of the 6-day experiment.

 

No doubt religion can motivate - or be used as justification for - any variety of evil acts. However, the Stanford experiment pretty clearly refutes the argument that the only way to get a good person to do evil is to bring religion into the picture.

[sb129]

You are right about that too. It ISN'T the only way, and I realised that not long after I posted the first post....

 

I was naughty.

[disgracian]

Religion has the capacity to override an individual's own sense of right and wrong, hence why it is a two-edged sword. Good people can be compelled to do evil deeds if they can be convinced that a passage in a holy book requires them to do so; likewise bad people can be prevented from harming others by the same means. This is a gross oversimplification to be sure, but it highlights the ambiguity of the situation and the incompleteness of sb129's original premise.

 

Cheers,

D.