The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #151015   Message #3522060
Posted By: Steve Shaw
02-Jun-13 - 08:36 PM
Thread Name: BS: Can all Athiests be lumped together?
Subject: RE: BS: Can all Athiests be lumped together?
Under no circumstances, Chongo, ask me to look in a mirror. No man who was once 11 stone but who is now one and a half times the man he used to be should be asked to look in a mirror.

I agree that there are a lot of, but certainly not all of, atheists here who express anger or other dissatisfaction with religion in general. This is because organized religions have done and continue to do many evil things.

Well this is true, but the argument troubles me somewhat. You won't catch me defending religion in a month of Sundays, but I'm a bit hesitant about this bad-stuff-done-in-the-name-of-religion mantra. I don't think that most of the stuff alleged to have been done in the name of religion was any such thing. Bad stuff is done in the name of greed, or imperialism, or whatever, but religion is all to often used as the covering excuse. Which is not to say that bad things are never done in the name of religion, far from it. But bad things are done in the name of all sorts of things. I won't single out religion in spite of the fact that I think religion is by far the worst thing that has ever happened to the human race. Next time you hear of something horrid done in the name of religion, ask yourself whether religion was just the excuse, the means of justifying.